


The Burbank Station

by Starfox5



Series: The Burbank Mystery [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Chuck (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 39
Words: 241,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22972339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starfox5/pseuds/Starfox5
Summary: Chuck Bartowski lost both his parents growing up in Sunnydale, was framed and expelled from Stanford by his former friend, and his best friend keeps trying to get him to hunt demons. Things changed, though. He’s got a great girlfriend and he’s working for the CIA. If only he were not hunted by both demons and spies… Sequel to “The Burbank Situation”
Relationships: Chuck Bartowski/Sarah Walker
Series: The Burbank Mystery [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1650886
Comments: 26
Kudos: 16





	1. The Bait Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Chuck or any of the characters in the series. I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any of the characters in the series.
> 
> This story is set in an Alternate Universe. A number of canon events didn’t happen or happened differently in the series.

**The Burbank Station**

****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, November 16th, 2007**

Chuck Bartowski stared at the disc on his desk. A message. From Bryce Larkin, his former friend. They had had plans together - until Bryce had framed him for cheating and got him expelled from Stanford a few months before graduation. Before or after hitching up with Chuck’s girlfriend, Jill.

Bryce Larkin, who had been a CIA double agent infiltrating a secret organisation named ‘Fulcrum’ and had stolen an NSA top-secret database and search algorithm - the Intersect - only to mail it to Chuck before he was shot and left for dead. Which led to the Intersect ending up in Chuck’s head, and him becoming a high-level CIA intelligence asset.

And to Chuck working with Bryce Larkin to root out the Fulcrum agents within the CIA and NSA. A mission that had led to Bryce dying - for real, this time - in a bombing that destroyed the rebuilt Intersect and, once more, left Chuck the only Intersect in the world - and Fulcrum’s number one target.

And left him with Bryce’s last message.

He picked up the disc. “You should never connect media you don’t trust to your computer,” he reminded himself aloud.

“What did you say?”

He jerked, almost dropping the disc to the floor. Sarah! He still wasn’t used to actually living with his girlfriend. He still wasn’t used to a girlfriend, period. Even less to a girlfriend who was one of the best spies in the CIA.

He heard her steps on the stairs - she wasn’t trying to sneak, or he wouldn’t have heard her at all - and a moment later, she entered his room. “Chuck?”

“Uh, ah… I was just talking to myself.” He dropped the disc onto his desk with a flick of his fingers that didn’t look as smooth as he had imagined it. “Bryce sent me a message, or so the tag claims.”

“A message?” Sarah frowned, which made her look very cute, as she walked up to his desk and grabbed the envelope and note with which the disc had been delivered.

“Classic ‘to be mailed after my death’ message, I think,” Chuck said. That was how it worked in a tv series.

“Sloppy,” she commented. “You either need someone you trust implicitly, or you set up an automatic delivery system, which you might be unable to stop after at one point even though you’re still alive.”

“Ah.” That made sense. Of course it did. Sarah was an experienced spy. Her past was so secret, it wasn’t even in her CIA file. Chuck knew that since he knew her file courtesy of the Intersect. “I’m a little hesitant to open the message. Or slide the disc into my drive. The last time I opened a message from Bryce, I ended up with…” He pointed at his temple. “You know.”

She nodded, putting one hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently. She hadn’t taken offence, had she? Without the Intersect, they wouldn’t have met, after all.

He cleared his throat. “So… I’m a tiny little bit apprehensive. On the other hand: It’s his last message. It could be important.” He would feel really stupid - and would probably be dead - if they failed to destroy Fulcrum because Chuck hadn’t wanted to listen to Bryce’s last words and they contained crucial information. Which, thanks to the Intersect compiling and analysing data in seemingly random patterns to generate results nothing else could come up with, could be the case even if Bryce himself hadn’t been aware of that information.

“Yes. Do you want me to stay while you open it?”

She didn’t question whether or not he’d open it. Of course, she didn’t know that he wasn’t as brave as he tried to act. But he wanted her here. And she deserved to be here. Bryce had been his friend - his best friend, apart from Morgan - but he had also been her lover. “Yes.”

He’d still run a virus check, of course. And he’d use a fresh laptop from the Buy More stocks. Just in case.

It would be really embarrassing if he’d catch a virus because he didn’t follow the very security rules he always told the Nerd Herd clients to follow.

*****

It was a video message. Chuck winced - reading Bryce’s last words was one thing, but seeing him, hearing him… But Chuck would see this through. He had gone through worse, after all.

_“Well, Chuck, if you see this, then I’m dead.”_

Bryce’s grin on the screen didn’t look like he actually expected that to happen, but he quickly grew serious. 

_“And I never told you why I got you expelled from Stanford.”_

He sighed. He looked a little younger than Chuck remembered.

_“And that’s something you deserve to know. Something I don’t want to take with me into the grave, so to speak. In short, the CIA wanted to recruit you at Stanford. Just as they recruited me.”_

He grinned again.

_“Yes, Chuck, I’m a spy. And a good one. Anyway, I knew you weren’t cut out to a spy - it’s not a game, Chuck. It’s a dirty business. Too dirty and too brutal for you. But I also knew you wouldn’t turn them down if they asked. You’d think it were an adventure, like a game. And they would ask you - your grades were just too good, and you fit their other requirements. So, I decided to frame you as a cheater. If the CIA thought your grades were fake, they wouldn’t be interested. Especially since you got caught. I know it would hurt you, but you’d still be alive. Alive and with your family, instead of training to be a killer like me.”_

He sighed. 

_“I don’t regret it. Not framing you, not becoming a spy myself. I only regret that you never knew that it was for your own good. Well, now you know.”_

He smiled.

_“Sorry for the late apology. Oh. I almost forgot: Seducing Jill was also for your own good. She would have destroyed you, trust me. So, live long and prosper, Chuck.”_

Bryce grinned until the message ended.

*****

Chuck leaned back, clenching his teeth. “For my own good,” he spat. “Fun and games? I grew up on a Hellmouth!”

Sarah squeezed his shoulder again. “He must have recorded the message before he learned the truth.”

Chuck closed his eyes. Was it his own damn fault? If he had told Bryce about the supernatural during their time at Stanford… But Bryce had laughed at the hints. If it had been Los Angeles, Chuck might have been able to arrange for a demonstration, but Stanford? Not to mention that ‘my friend doesn’t believe in magic, I want to show him the truth’ sounded really petty as a reason to ask for a favour from the Council, now that he thought of it. 

He sighed. “I know that he didn’t know. But to know what he thought about me? That kinda hurts, you know?” He turned his head to look at her.

She nodded and sat on the desk, half-facing him. 

He tore his eyes away from her legs. “And there were a few too many ‘knows’ in that sentence.” He forced himself to chuckle. “I…” Not ‘know’. “I’m aware I’m no Casey.” All too aware. “But I don’t exactly look that weak, do I?”

Her smile twisted a little. “You’ll make a good spy,” she said.

“Ouch.” He grimaced. “Shouldn’t you salvage my fragile male ego?” He turned it into a joke with another forced grin.

“You’ve fought demons and spies,” she told him. “Without the advantages of training or magic powers. I told you before: Don’t put yourself down.” She slid off the desk and into his lap.

He gasped a little at the unexpected weight - not that he’d complain - as his arms closed around her waist and his chair rolled back about a foot.

“That you don’t look like Casey is an advantage for a spy,” she said. “You’re more attractive as well,” she added with a smirk that had rapidly become familiar to him.

“Ah…” he knew what was coming - she was already shifting her weight - and his lips were open when she kissed him.

When they broke the kiss, he wanted to crack a joke. Something like ‘I’m already feeling better’. Or ‘my ego’s been healed.’ But all he managed was a sappy smile. 

He still couldn’t really believe that a woman like Sarah would fall for him. Bryce didn’t believe it either, of course. He fought the annoyance that thought brought with it down. Bryce had been wrong. Sarah wasn’t manipulating him. 

It still felt wrong to make out right after watching his former friend’s last message. 

Then another kiss that left both of them panting, and Chuck pushed the doubts away.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, November 17th, 2007**

Waking up with Sarah in his arms was something of which Chuck would never grow tired. And watching her wake up… The way she blinked, half-asleep, completely relaxed, before she snapped fully awake and tensed, glaring around for a moment… A perfect mix of beauty and danger.

“Good morning,” he drawled.

“Good morning,” she replied, brushing a lock of hair away from her face.

Perfect.

“Good Morning!” 

Hearing Ellie yelling from below, though, wasn’t perfect.

“Chuck! Sarah! We’ve got breakfast ready in twenty minutes!”

“Thank you, Ellie!” he yelled back. As if they couldn’t prepare breakfast themselves. Granted, sometimes - well, often - they didn’t manage to get out of the bed in time but, still, it was the principle of the thing. He loved his sister, but she had an annoying tendency to mother him - including trying to run his life. “Breakfast with the family is on the menu,” he said in a low voice, grimacing.

Sarah smiled. She was a trooper. “We better get up, then.”

He nodded, even though he would prefer to get up to something else.

*****

“So, have you thought about remodelling?” Ellie asked as she served coffee. “Chuck’s got many talents, but interior decorator isn’t among them.”

“Love you too, sis,” Chuck muttered.

Sarah, of course, managed to keep smiling and reply: “We haven’t yet talked about that.”

Did that mean she wanted to remodel his apartment? It wasn’t a man cave, as Morgan had wanted, and IKEA furniture wasn’t really bad, was it?

“Well, you should,” Captain Awesome said, showing his perfect teeth in a smile. “It’s not a home until you’ve made it yours. Both of you, together. Ellie and I did that.”

Of course they had. Chuck forced himself to smile. “We haven’t yet discussed that. But we will - Sarah’s great at remodelling. You should have seen her old apartment!” That earned him a look from her. 

“I’d love to see it!” Ellie said. “I’ve got the evening free!”

Sarah’s look turned into a glare.

Oh, yes - the CIA had furnished her apartment. Chuck had forgotten that.

That might complicate matters a little.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Glendale, November 17th, 2007**

“Oh, I love it! You’ve got such great taste!” Ellie exclaimed. “Chuck, let her decorate your apartment!”

Chuck forced himself to smile - his apartment was perfectly fine. Behind Ellie’s back, Sarah shook her head at him. “Uh, this apartment is very different from ours, you know?” he said. “What fits one might not fit the other.”

“Anything is better than ‘Late Nintendo Style’,” Ellie replied.

“Hey!” He frowned at her. He didn’t even have a Nintendo console! “I’ll have you know that many artists use computer art in their work these days!”

Ellie raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re no artist, Chuck.” She turned to Sarah, who quickly pasted a smile on her face. “Really, unless you want to live in an apartment styled after video games, you need to take matters into hand.”

“I’m sure we’ll work things out,” Sarah said, then frowned at him again once Ellie turned to inspect at the low glass table in front of the couch.

Chuck couldn’t help noticing a distinct lack of Sarah defending his interior decorating choices.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, November 17th, 2007**

“The apartment isn’t that bad, you know,” Chuck said once Sarah and he had returned to his - their - apartment. “Of course, it doesn’t have any designer furniture or antiques, but it’s functional. In a Scandinavian way.”

“You mean it’s a mix of IKEA and comic and video games merchandise,” Sarah replied.

“TRON is a classic movie!” he protested.

“About a video game.” She smirked at him.

He raised a finger to retort, but couldn’t think of an argument that wouldn’t sound stupid. “It’s still a classic,” he finally said, sitting down on his couch.

“I doubt that Ellie minds your Tron poster,” Sarah said as she joined him on the couch.

“She’s my sister but she doesn’t live here. Even though she tends to treat it as an extension of her apartment,” he replied. “You’re moving in here, so: What do you mind?”

“Hm.”

“That’s where you assure me that the apartment only needs a few feminine touches and is otherwise fine,” he reminded her.

“You want me to lie to you?” She was smiling, but he still felt the sting. “Also, ‘feminine touches’? Really?”

He had to wince. “Sorry, I was quoting Morgan.”

“Ah.”

He didn’t like that tone. “He’s my best friend.”

“He also isn’t an authority on interior decoration,” Sarah retorted.

“Well, aren’t we going to let the CIA specialists do their thing? You know, the safehouse guys?” Chuck had seen their lists and services, after all.

“You’re too secret for them,” Sarah shot the idea down.

“What about the guys who built the underground base?”

“It’s been officially christened ‘The Castle’,” she told him. “But would you really want them to decorate your home? Holding cells, armories and computer screens?”

The Castle. He hadn’t known that. Shouldn’t he have been told? He shook his head. “Can’t we decorate our home?”

“We’ll have to.”

Judging by her wry smile… “Let me guess: Your home wouldn’t pass muster with Ellie either, would it?”

“I’m a spy, not an interior decorator.”

Which meant no, it wouldn’t. He tried to hide his grin but failed. She smiled in return.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, November 19th, 2007**

Morgan made a beeline towards him as soon as Chuck entered the Buy More. Which wasn’t a good sign.

“Hi, Chuck! You’re not busy, are you? Of course you’re not, or you wouldn’t be here but off doing spy stuff. Listen! I need your help!”

“What? With your ‘the best assault clips of Medal of Honour’ video?”

“What? Oh, no, I did that yesterday.” Morgan handed him a memory stick. “Try it out! It’s great!” He smiled. “No, it’s about you know what. Did Caridad talk to you yet?”

“Morgan, I told you, I can’t control my ‘thing’.” Chuck blinked. “And that sounded much worse than I thought.”

“She didn’t.” Morgan nodded, apparently ignoring him. “Look, someone’s been poaching.”

“Poaching?”

“Yes, in the last week, three half-demons were killed by unknown hunters.”

“And Caridad is complaining about ‘kill stealing’.” Chuck nodded. Slayers were very territorial - sometimes irrationally so.

“Uh… the victims were peaceful half-demons.” Morgan winced. “Phil thinks that they were killed for their blood - they were all drained.”

Chuck winced. “Damn. That’s…” Vampires generally wouldn’t drink slime blood. 

“Yeah.” Morgan nodded. “They were all half-slime demons.”

Chuck winced again. “Uh. You mean...?”

“Yes. Jeff could be in danger.”

“He’s no half-demon. He just has one among his ancestors,” Chuck said.

“That might be enough for the killer.” Morgan nodded. “We need to protect him.”

Protecting Jeff… Chuck knew that that was easier said than done. Some people with demon ancestry lived perfectly normal lives. Jeff wasn’t among them. ‘Weird’ and ‘creepy’ described him quite accurately. ‘Lecherous’ as well. There was a reason he was never sent to a female Nerd Herd customer. And, Chuck had to admit, there was a reason that Anna was the only female Nerd Herder who hadn’t quit after a few weeks - she had resorted to physical attacks to stop him stalking her.

And she wasn’t the only one who had ever beaten up Jeff; such incidents happened quite frequently when he and Lester went drinking together, as Chuck had learned from their chats during work. So they couldn’t assume that someone was the murderer whom Caridad hunted just because they were attacking Jeff. Fortunately for him and the Buy More’s health insurance provider, his slime demon ancestry made Jeff quite resilient and he healed quicker than normal humans.

“I’ll tell Casey that we might have demon hunters on the premises,” he told Morgan.

“Are you sure Casey won’t kill Jeff?” Morgan asked with a notable wince.

“Of course…” Chuck trailed off. Casey actually had often voiced his wish to kill Jeff and Lester, and Chuck wasn’t entirely certain whether he was serious or not. If the agent knew that Jeff had demon ancestry, would he consider the man a threat?

Chuck sighed. “I’ll tell him not to kill Jeff. But tell Jeff to tone his usual antics down.” Delegation was the key to good management, after all.

Morgan grimaced but nodded in agreement. “I’ll do it. I’ll threaten him with Caridad.”

“Good.” They couldn’t threaten Jeff with Casey since that would endanger the agent’s cover - and Casey would certainly kill Jeff to prevent that. Probably enjoy it, too. But Caridad? Even Jeff knew better than to annoy the resident Slayer.

“Speak of the devil…” Morgan whispered, nodding towards the door to the staff area, where Casey had just appeared. “Good luck!”

Chuck frowned as Morgan made his exit, then sighed and marched towards the agent. “Hey, Casey!”

The agent narrowed his eyes at once. “Bartowski,” he growled. 

Chuck had a flashback to that encounter with the neighbours’ pitbull in Sunnydale which had traumatised him for his kindergarten years. “Uh… bad time?”

“It’s always a bad time in the Buy More.”

“Ah…” Chuck forced himself to smile. “And a good morning to you as well!” He cleared his throat and checked if anyone was watching them, but he couldn’t spot anyone - this was too early for most customers. “So… I just heard something that might have an impact on our mission.”

“The poachers?”

Chuck blinked, How had…? “Caridad told you?”

“Yes.” He grinned. “First time Jeff will be of any use.”

“Uh…” What did he…? Chuck’s eyes widened as he made the connection. “You’re using him as _bait_?”

Casey grinned. “If we’re lucky, they’ll kill him before we get them. Win-win.”

“You didn’t actually ask him, did you?”

“Of course not. If he were aware, he’d give the game away.” Casey bared his teeth.

“Ah… good plan. Good plan.” Chuck nodded and kept smiling until Casey had disappeared behind the latest game releases.

This was a bad idea. Very bad.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, November 19th, 2007**

“...and they’re using Jeff as bait,” Chuck finished telling Sarah the news before taking another sip from his soda.

She didn’t look as shocked as he had expected. She was nodding, actually. “It’s smart. That way, they don’t have to split their forces between bodyguarding and hunting.”

“Casey said if the poachers killed Jeff, it’d be a win-win situation:”

“He wasn’t serious,” she replied.

“He sounded serious,” Chuck retorted.

“He probably just wanted to get a rise out of you,” Sarah said. “Besides, if the target of a bodyguarding mission were killed on his watch, it’d reflect negatively on his reputation.”

“It’s not an official mission,” he reminded her.

“But,” she countered with a grin, “it’s a mission from Caridad. She informed him before you heard about this, right?”

“Right.” Sarah was correct - Morgan had informed him, but Caridad had gone to Casey. “Do you really think there’s something between those two?”

“Why, jealous?” She grinned, making it a joke.

“No, no” Chuck was quick to say. “I’m just…” A little jealous - dropped for Casey? Would Sarah do the same? No. “No, I just can’t see him with her. They’re too…”

“Similar?”

“Yes!” He nodded at her. 

“Opposites attract, but birds of a feather flock together,” she said as she rose.

“Ah.” Chuck nodded again, wondering if that meant anything for his and Sarah’s relationship.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, November 19th, 2007**

“...and according to our, albeit limited, information, Mr Colt is currently in Los Angeles. As he is suspected of being a key figure in the sabotage of the Intersect, his arrest is of utmost importance to uncover Fulcrum’s plot.” General Beckman stared at them as she nodded once. “You will deploy the Intersect at the possible locations of interest we sent you. Any questions?”

The sabotage of the Intersect and the murder of Bryce and the director, Chuck mentally corrected the general.

“No, ma’am,” Casey snapped.

“No, general,” Sarah added.

This wouldn’t be a good time to ask for leave, Chuck knew. Even though he was supposed to deal - or at least help - with someone targeting half-demons in Los Angeles, and Ellie expected him to turn his apartment into an exhibit fit for 'American Home Magazine’ - yesterday.

“No, ma’am,” he replied accordingly, then waited until the screen turned black. “Uh…”

“This takes priority, Bartowski,” Casey interrupted him.

“But…”

“We have to find out what Fulcrum knows - if they know about you…” Sarah shook her head as she trailed off. “I’m sorry, Chuck, but the Council will have to solve the poaching problem on their own.”

“But…” They couldn’t let Jeff get killed.

“Caridad will manage,” Casey said. “And if she doesn’t, Jeff is an acceptable loss.”

“No, he isn’t!” Chuck blurted out. Jeff might be creepy, and a lech, and misusing Buy More equipment - though everyone did that - but he was still their co-worker. And if your co-worker was threatened, you were supposed to do something about it.

And now he sounded like Morgan in his own head. Morgan misquoting a classic move, to be precise.

Casey snorted. “You’re the Intersect. He’s a drain on company resources. Well, one of the worst of your bunch.”

“I didn’t know you cared so much about the Buy More’s bottom line,” Chuck retorted. “Big Mike would be happy to hear that.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Casey replied. “And priorities. You’re one, he’s not, and we can’t help everyone.”

Chuck looked at Sarah, but she shook her head. “You’re more important, Chuck.”

He knew she didn’t just mean the Intersect in his head, but it still stung. He stood, shaking his head. “I’ll not let him get killed!” he declared as he left The Castle.

As soon as he could think of a good way to achieve that without endangering the mission and putting Sarah and Casey at risk.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, November 19th, 2007**

Chuck found Jeff and Lester in the staff area of the Buy More trying to load speakers into Jeff’s van. He cleared his throat, which caused them to freeze.

“Oh, hi, Chuck!” Lester beamed the worst smile Chuck had seen in days at him. “Didn’t see you there.”

“What’s up?” Jeff appeared to be considerably less nervous than his friend.

“I think that’s my line,” Chuck told them, trying to imitate Casey’s glare. Lester cringed a little, but Jeff, as usual, seemed completely unaffected. “Did you buy those speakers?”

“Uh… we’re not taking them,” Lester said. “We’re… we’re borrowing them!”

Jeff nodded.

“To test them. They were defective, and we fixed them, so we need to test them. Wouldn’t want to sell shoddy merchandise in the Buy More, would we?”

“‘Testing’.” Chuck shook his head. “And how long were those tests supposed to take?”

“A week? Have to be sure that…” Lester trailed off.

“Put them back to the warehouse,” Chuck snapped. “Jeff, I need to talk to you afterwards. _Alone_ ,” he added.

For the first time since he had caught them in the act, Jeff looked nervous, Chuck noticed before he left them to check what else they might have done.

*****

Fifteen minutes later, Jeff entered Chuck’s office - which had been a broom closet before his promotion to assistant manager. 

“We’re done,” Jeff said while looking at the wall behind Chuck.

Chuck raised a finger. “One moment.” He walked to the door. “Lester, don’t!” he snapped, then listened to the other man scrambling away. “I wanted to talk to you alone,” he said as he returned to his seat.

Jeff shrugged. He really didn’t make it easy to care about him, in Chuck’s opinion. 

He sighed. “Jeff, did you hear about the half-slime demon killings?”

Jeff’s eyes snapped open, and he stared at Chuck. “That wasn’t me!” he blurted out. “I didn’t kill anyone!”

Ah. “No. I meant, someone has been killing half-slime demons in Los Angeles.”

“Oh.” And Jeff was back to that half-lidded stare.

“For their blood,” Chuck added.

“Oh.” Jeff blinked. Slowly.

“You might be in danger as well,” Chuck pointed out a few seconds of silence later.

“Oh.”

Chuck resisted the urge to rub his face. “Let rephrase that: The Slayer thinks the killers will come for you.”

“The Slayer?” Jeff’s voice had risen an octave.

“Yes.”

Jeff started to look around. “Is she here?”

“She might be - I wouldn’t know,” Chuck said. “Look, calm down. They’re keeping an eye on you.”

“What?” Jeff jumped up. “I have to get out… I have to get away!” He whirled and almost ran into the door.

“Wait!” Chuck yelled as he stood up himself.

But the man wasn’t listening, and by the time Chuck had gotten out from behind his desk in the narrow former closet, Jeff had disappeared.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, November 19th, 2007**

“And it seems that Jeff had prepared a hideout ‘deep in the bowels of the Buy More’,” Chuck told Sarah over dinner - he had made a penne casserole. He shook his head. “It’s a real labyrinth there, dating back about a hundred years, of failed projects and excavations. All of it is unsafe, so it’s been closed off - or should have been. I called Caridad, but she lost his trail in the tunnels below the basement.” 

Sarah frowned. “Couldn’t she follow his scent?”

“Apparently, Jeff used some chemicals to throw her off,” Chuck told her. Which probably was a good thing - Caridad had looked so mad when her nose didn’t stop running for half an hour after smelling Jeff’s concoction, she might have killed him herself if she had found him.

Sarah chuckled. “I would have liked to see that.” He frowned at her, but her grin grew a little wider. “And you probably should have expected that to happen when you told him that Caridad would be watching him.”

“Honestly, it’s sometimes hard to remember just how much some demons fear the Slayer,” he said.

“There’s also the fact that Jeff and his friends are creepy voyeurs who tried to take upskirt pictures of me with a remote-controlled toy car,” Sarah pointed out.

“What?” Chuck had a sudden urge to hunt down Jeff himself.

“I taught them not to,” she replied.

“Ah.” He blinked. “Was that shortly after you arrived?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“They claimed the toy car had been broken while being unloaded. As did a camera, actually.” Typical.

She shrugged, obviously not too concerned about the terrible two’s antics. “You probably lose more to thieves every day.”

“Casey actually put a dent into that,” Chuck replied. A number of shoplifters probably were too traumatised to even go near the Buy More any more.

“I saw one of his ‘takedowns’,” she said. “In any case, you accomplished your mission.”

“What?” What did she mean?

“Jeff is safely holed up, so he can’t be used as bait.”

“Oh.” He blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am.” She smiled as she finished her plate.

“But I still find the idea that Jeff has become the Phantom of the Buy More a little disturbing,” he said. More than a little disturbing, actually, given what he knew about Jeff’s private life. Which he hadn’t wanted to know.

Her grin turned into a grimace.

He nodded with a similar expression.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown, November 20th, 2007**

“And this is the address?” Casey didn’t sound as if he believed Chuck. Which was quite unfair - Chuck had been right every time he had flashed. Well, mostly.

He tapped his temple. “That’s what my little friend got after you had me watching hours and hours of security tapes showing mercenaries raiding an NSA lab.” And all while he should have been working at the Buy More - now Chuck felt pretty bad for telling off the rest of the staff for their cage fighting event during a two-hour lunch break.

Casey grunted.

Sarah rolled her eyes, then smiled at Chuck. “Stay in the car, Chuck.”

He refrained from smarting off and nodded. He knew he wasn’t a trained spy - or a Slayer. His place wasn’t on the frontlines. But he couldn’t help feeling like a coward as he watched Casey and Sarah leave the car and approach the apartment where Mr Colt was supposed to live.

Sighing, he leaned back and tried not to worry about them risking their lives while he was watching. Figuratively, of course - he didn’t have a direct line of sight to the suspect’s apartment. That would have been too dangerous for him. Well, there was also the fact that he was in a Nerd Herd Car, and Nerd Herders didn’t make house calls at midnight. If Mr Colt was as good as a spy as he was supposed to be - and, seeing as he had broken into an NSA lab, stolen an Intersect part and ‘lost’ it to an NSA recovery team which failed to realise it had been sabotaged, he had proved his skill - then spotting a Nerd Herder car might ruin the mission.

But the real reason Chuck was kept out of sight was to keep him safe. Or, rather, keep the Intersect safe, but close enough to support Casey and Sarah if he were needed. Which, even though it was stupid and selfish, Chuck hoped would be the case. He wanted to do something, not just serve as a mobile terminal for the Intersect.

Sighing once more, he sat up straight and stared at the radio. He wouldn’t ask how it was going. That was stupid and might distract Sarah or Casey at a crucial moment. But couldn’t they at least inform him how it was going? He didn’t even know if they were inside the apartment yet.

Well, as a glance at his spy watch confirmed, five minutes had passed - unless the building had better security than expected, they should have been inside by now. Ready to charge into the apartment. Sarah would blast open the door with a shotgun, and Casey would enter first - be on point - with an M4. And Mr Colt would…

“He bolted! Rappelled down from the balcony!” Casey’s voice suddenly sounded from the car’s speakers.

What? Mr Colt had escaped? Chuck blinked. The balcony opened to the south, which meant… His eyes widened. That meant the closest escape route would lead directly to him!

He looked to the side just in time to see Mr Colt jump through the bushes to the right of the car, less than ten metres from Chuck.

For a moment, both stared at each other. Chuck saw the man’s eyes widen - oh, God, the mercenary must have realised what Chuck was doing here! And he was drawing a gun!

But he froze once more before he could shoot Chuck, then dashed away, disappearing into a side alley. A moment later, Casey broke through the bushes, looking left and right before glaring at Chuck.

Chuck raised his hand and pointed towards the side alley with a grimace.

The NSA agent broke into a sprint, following the mercenary, but returned less than a minute later, just as Sarah arrived. “He got away,” Casey growled.

Chuck held up his index finger. “Two things: I did as ordered and stayed in the car, so I couldn’t have stopped him. And I think this proves that staying in the car isn’t as safe as everyone tries to tell me.”

“You’re right,” Casey spat. Chuck almost gasped. Did that mean… “Next time, you should stay at The Castle,” the man went on.

That wasn’t what Chuck had wanted. Not at all!

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, November 21st, 2007**

“It wasn’t my fault,” Chuck said as he and Sarah prepared to go to bed an hour and a rather terse debriefing later.

“No one said it was,” Sarah replied.

That was true. But Chuck had seen the glances. And sitting in the car, watching the enemy run past you… “It feels like it’s my fault,” he said.

“It isn’t,” she said.

He was about to retort, but she bent over to pick up her sleepwear, and he stared instead. He cleared his throat when she slipped her tank top on. “I should have done something. Kicked the car door into him.”

“He would have shot you.”

Chuck sighed as he picked up his own t-shirt. “He almost shot me anyway.” And Chuck wouldn’t have been able to do anything, trapped in the car. “I was helpless.”

Sarah took a moment to reply. “And you don’t want to be helpless.”

No, he didn’t. “Staying in the car won’t protect me. Staying in The Castle won’t protect me either.” Bryce and the director had been killed in the middle of a top-secret base as well, after all.

“Knowing how to shoot a gun won’t always protect you, either,” she replied as if she had read his thoughts.

“It would protect me in some situations,” he retorted. “Like today.”

After a moment, she nodded. “You’re right.”

“I am? I mean, yes.”

That made her laugh.

He pouted. A little. “I just want to do more than just sitting in the car.”

“I know.” She slid into his bed. “But the training will take a lot of time.”

He knew what she meant. “Time we won’t have while hunting Fulcrum with only one Intersect.”

“Yes.”

He sighed and sat down on the bed. “Perhaps some lessons, at least? With you, not with Casey. He might kill me. Accidentally.” Or on purpose.

“I think that should be possible.”

“Thank you,” he said as he joined her in his bed. It was cramped with two people - they were supposed to buy a bigger bed - but he didn’t mind.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, November 21st, 2007**

It took Chuck half an hour to find Lester after he showed up for work, but he finally cornered the man in the basement of the Buy More. Chuck’s prepared speech died on his lips, though, as soon as he saw what the man was doing. “Are those… panties?”

“Ah… no?” Lester chuckled with a grimace.

“They are panties. From our underwear department, unless someone stole our price tags and put them on panties not taken from our store.” Chuck looked at the rest of the stuff on the floor. “Where did you get the beer though?”

“Jeff’s fridge.”

Chuck blinked. “And what are you doing here with beer, panties and… chloroform?” He held up the bottle and stared at the label.

“That’s Jeff’s too!” Lester quickly said.

“I want to know what you are doing with all this,” Chuck said with his best Casey-glare.

Lester caved, which surprised Chuck. “Ah… I’m trying to lure out Jeff.”

“With panties, beer and chloroform?” That was...

“His favourite things.” Lester beamed at him.

...another thing Chuck hadn’t wanted to know. “Uh…” They were quite short-staffed, with Jeff holed up somewhere beneath the store, and Lester now here. On the other hand, Lester would be useless anyway while he worried about Jeff. “Continue.”

He turned and left, ignoring Lester’s gasp of surprise. He had more important things to worry about.

*****

Morgan was waiting at the Nerd Herd booth when Chuck returned to the store. “Chuck!”

“Hi, Morgan.”

“Did Lester’s plan work?”

“You knew about this?” Chuck stared at his best friend.

Morgan shrugged. “He told me. It sounded like it could work.”

“He’s trying to lure Jeff out with panties - probably used ones - beer and chloroform.” Each time Chuck said it, it sounded more surreal.

“It’s Jeff,” Morgan replied as if that explained it.

Perhaps it did. Chuck sighed and checked the list for today’s house calls. If he shuffled two shifts around, they could…

“Wow, look at that guy. Do they even make t-shirts in his size?” Morgan blurted out. “He makes Schwarzenegger look puny!”

Chuck looked up and froze. Mr Colt had just entered the store. And he had spotted Chuck.

*****


	2. The Bait Part 2

**California, Burbank, Buy More, November 21st, 2007**

Mr Colt was here! And he had recognised Chuck! This was a catastrophe! His identity was compromised! His family in danger! He had to do something. Anything!

No, he couldn’t panic! They were in the middle of the Buy More, surrounded by dozens of civilians. Dozens of witnesses. Even Mr Colt wouldn’t dare to start anything here. Not when surrounded by…

He blinked. He flashed. The young man studying the flat screen tv? Hans Krause, former member of the Légion étrangère, working as a mercenary, wanted for murder in two countries. The woman comparing toaster prices? Antonia Fernandez, ex-FARC soldier, ex-Cartel hitwoman. The man looking at the latest Medal of Honour title? Jimmy Barnes, former Para, dishonourably discharged after an incident in Belfast. The man behind Mr Colt? Kevin Smith, wanted for armed robbery in three states. Takeo Kurosawa. Jim Lee. Franco di Matteo. Calvin Brown. Liam O’Brien.

He gasped for air. “Oh my God! They’re here. In the store! Dozens of them!” he muttered as Mr Colt walked towards him with a smile on his face.

“What? Oh my God!” Morgan whispered next to him. “We have to warn Jeff!” He darted away.

‘Warn Jeff’? Why would… Chuck’s eyes widened. Morgan thought he had been talking about the demon hunters! “Morgan!” But his friend had already disappeared through the door to the staff area.

Mr Colt was now just one aisle away, and two of his men were moving to block Chuck’s escape routes. Obviously, the mercenary didn’t care about the few customers in the store who weren’t his men in disguise.

Chuck was cornered. He needed a distraction. If he announced 50% off of all electronics for the next thirty minutes… No, he couldn’t risk civilians. Wait a minute… Medal of Honour.

He ducked down in his booth and grabbed the stick with Morgan’s clip, then plugged it into the PA system, turned the volume up to max and hit play. A moment later, the sounds of gunfire and helicopters filled the store.

And while the mercenaries dropped to the ground and drew weapons, looking for the attackers, Chuck crawled out of his booth and made his way towards the side entrance to the home cinema demonstration room.

Piece of ca…

“There he is! Get him!”

He should have known better than taunting Murphy like that! Chuck winced as he jumped up and started to run. Someone charged at him from the side, but a quick kick to the EA Sports display caused the mercenary to crash and disappear under a sea of game boxes.

Saved by video games! Chuck would have smiled if not for the half dozen other mercenaries closing in.

He threw himself through the door, then rolled over the - fortunately - thick shagging carpet until he bumped against the couch. No one had shot, though - they wanted him alive! Panting, he got up and ran to the exit. If he could lose them in the staff area…

He toppled the trash can behind the door as he passed it, and grinned for a moment when he heard a curse and the sound of someone crashing to the floor behind him. Yes!

The break room’s poker table was turned into another ready-made obstacle as he dashed towards the stairs.

“Get him!”

Uh-oh. That was Mr Colt himself. The man was too damn quick on his feet for his bulk.

But Chuck was on the stairs now. He slammed the fire door closed behind him, then locked it with his manager key. Safe! He leaned against it to catch his breath. Now he had to call Sarah and Casey…

He blinked. Why hadn’t Casey been in the Buy More? And Sarah… She should have spotted Mr Colt entering the store from Wienerlicious!

He pulled out his phone but before he could text Sarah, a huge blade cut through the door next to his head.

Shrieking, he dashed down the stairs. He needed to hide! Before they broke through the door! He needed to…

He skidded to a stop in the lower basement. “Lester!” he yelled, startling the man. “Stop this! We have to hide!”

“What?” Lester jerked and dropped a suspiciously empty beer bottle to the ground.

“Get him!” Chuck heard Mr Colt bellow above them.

“No! The killers!” Lester wailed. “Jeff! Jeff! They’re here!”

“Come on!” Chuck grabbed him and started to drag him towards the entrance to the lower levels. “We need to hide below!”

“But… I’m not Jeff!”

“They don’t care!” Chuck snapped as he pushed past the barricade meant to keep people out of the catacombs below the store.

He took the first turn right - had to break the enemy’s line of sight as fast as possible. Then left - get away further from them. There was no light anymore, but he had his phone for that. Enough to run on. Another right, then left… oh, a ladder in an alcove to the side! “Down here!” he hissed to the panting Lester, then started climbing. “Come on!”

The ladder led to another tunnel - but further down than Chuck had expected. They must have skipped another floor.

“Chuck!” Lester landed next to him, collapsing on the floor and panting as if he had run a marathon. “What…”

Chuck shushed him. “Be silent,” he hissed. “They can hear us.”

“What… are… we… doing?” Lester asked in a whisper.

“We’re running away,” Chuck replied. He barely resisted the urge to add ‘what does it look like we’re doing?’

“I noticed. But…” Lester slowly got up, hands on his knees. “...where are we going?”

“Uh…” Chuck hadn’t actually been down in the catacombs so far. They were ideal for vampires and other demons vulnerable to sunlight. “Ah, we…” 

Light shone down the ladder. Flashlight! Mr Colt! 

“Run!” Chuck hissed, dragging Lester with him again.

“They’re down here!” echoed above and behind them.

Chuck muttered a curse and took the next tunnel right, left, left, right, straight… straight… “Whoa!” 

He managed to stop in time before falling into a hole. In the ground. Behind him, Lester collapsed again, making wheezing noises. 

“I think… we… lost them,” Chuck said between gulping down air. He looked around, letting the dim light from his phone’s screen play over broken down furniture and pots. “But I think we’re lost, too.”

“Lost?” 

Chuck didn’t have to look at Lester’s face to know he was gaping.

“What do you mean lost? You lead us! You dragged me down here, and you got me lost?”

“I was running away from two dozen armed killers,” Chuck pointed out. “Would you rather have been shot?”

“It’d be quicker than starving to death in the bowels of the earth!” Lester retorted. “In the darkness, once your phone’s battery gives out!”

“We won’t starve!” Chuck replied. “And we’ll get out of here.” His spy watch had a radio and a GPS locator, after all. And no reception, as he found out when he tried to use it. “Uh…”

“‘Uh’? What do you mean, ‘uh’?”

“It might take me a little longer than expected to get us out of here,” Chuck explained. “Wherever ‘here’ is,” he added.

“I’m eating you before I starve,” Lester muttered.

“We won’t starve,” Chuck retorted. “We’ll die of thirst long before we starve.”

“I’ll drink your blood before I die, then.”

Lester was kidding. Probably. But it would be a good idea to get un-lost before long. “Let’s see where we are!” Chuck announced with an overly cheerful voice. “Perhaps we find something useful.”

He fiddled with his phone - he was saving the battery of his spy watch, even though it had a more powerful light - and checked their surroundings. Broken furniture - all wood and metal, no plastic. Some broken tanks and pipes, and lots of old barrels… “We’re in an old distillery,” he said. “Probably installed during the prohibition.”

“They got booze here?” Lester sounded far more lively than a moment ago.

Chuck looked at the broken barrels. “Nothing left,” he said.

And Lester collapsed again. “We’re going to die here.”

“We won’t,” Chuck corrected him. “If this was an illegal distillery, then they had a way to transport the barrels of booze.” He walked along the walls. “Ah! See?” In the light from his phone, he saw old rails on the ground. “There it is!”

Lester joined him and stared at the ground. “We’re in a mine?”

“No. But they probably used the same kind of carts to transport the barrels. We just have to follow the rails. We won’t get lost!” Chuck said.

“We’re already lost,” Lester replied.

Chuck ignored him. They would get out of this.

Five minutes later, they were still following the rails and hadn’t stumbled upon an exit yet. At least his phone’s battery was holding.

“We’re lost,” Lester muttered behind him.

“No, we aren’t. We’re still on rails.”

Lester didn’t react to his joke. Was that a bad thing? Morale was critical for surviving in the wilderness, Chuck knew. They weren’t exactly in the jungle, of course, and it hadn’t even been half an hour since they had run away, but Lester seemed to be giving up already.

“This is all your fault. We’re going to die here, and it’s your fault!”

Well, he obviously had enough strength left to complain. Things couldn’t be really bad yet.

Just as Chuck was about to make another joke to lift their spirits, they heard a piercing scream from ahead of them.

Chuck froze for a moment - only a moment! - then started towards it, following the rails. He had no weapon, other than his emergency pencil-stake, which he clutched in his hand. A little spy training and gear would come in real handy right now, he thought as he - cautiously - made his way forward. 

And some night vision goggles, he added - the glow from his phone might be dim, but it’d still be easily seen at any distance in these tunnels. At least the tunnels were not too straight, which would help. A little.

Why exactly was he going towards the location of a scream, anyway? 

He hadn’t found an answer, but he hadn’t stopped, either, a few minutes later, when he saw the body on the floor. It was O’Brien, one of Mr Colt’s mercenaries. Still alive, Chuck realised with some relief, but unconscious. 

And covered in some sort of… slime.

“Uh-oh.”

Chuck didn’t scream in panic. He merely gasped a little as he whirled, pencil raised, to face… Lester. Whom he apparently had forgotten. No wonder he wasn’t a spy.

Lester raised his hands and took a step back. “Whoa! It’s me!”

“Don’t,” Chuck said, in a steady and hopefully slightly menacing voice, “try to sneak up on me.”

“It’s Jeff.”

“Jeff?” Chuck almost checked the unconscious mercenary again. “Jeff did this?”

“Yes, the, ah, slime.” Lester pointed at the puddle.

Apparently, Jeff’s demonic ancestry was a little more recent than he had led them to believe, Chuck noted. And Lester was aware of it - well, Chuck should have guessed that. “Paralysing slime?” he guessed. And how had Jeff managed to produce so much slime?

“Ah…” Lester flashed a forced smile in the dim light. “It was meant to be… recreational?”

“Recrea…” Chuck blinked. “He wanted to create drugs? You wanted to create drugs!”

Lester cringed. “It was just an experiment! We wanted to see what we could do with his, uh…”

Chuck really didn’t want to know what bodily fluid they had used. He glared at the other man. “ _That_ was your food poisoning?” He and the other Nerd Herders had had to fill in for the duo for an entire week!

“Well…”

Chuck sighed. “And the slime is adhesive, right?” He pointed to the mercenary. “He’s stuck to the floor?”

“Yes?”

So much for scavenging gear. He sighed. “So, Jeff trapped the tunnels. With his own slime. How much could he produce since he disappeared?”

Instead of answering, Lester nervously licked his lips.

Chuck closed his eyes for a moment. He should have realised that Jeff and Lester had behaved a little too well lately. “You stockpiled the stuff.”

“We were trying to find a formula that didn't, uh, knock people out. Or worked as glue.”

“In the tunnels below the Buy More.” They were even more stupid than Chuck had thought.

“No, no! We had a lab in the basement.”

Chuck stared at him.

“The old dry cleaning room - no one used it in ages! But Jeff cleaned it out before he moved down here.”

“We’re going to talk about this once we’re back in the Buy More,” Chuck told him. And he enjoyed seeing Lester cringe more than a little.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, November 21st, 2007**

“I see two men outside. Guards trying to pass as loitering customers.” And doing a halfway decent job of it, Sarah noticed as she informed Casey through the radio. They didn’t look particularly tense, but that would change as soon as the two men she had taken out inside her store failed to report in.

“Two more at the back,” Casey told her. With the three Casey had dealt with in the parking lot, that made nine enemies outside the Buy More.

“I’ll take care of the two in front,” Sarah said. They couldn’t wait any longer - she couldn’t reach Chuck either on his phone or through his watch.

“Careful. There are lots of potential witnesses.”

She frowned. As if she weren’t aware of that! Did Casey think that she forgot all her training and experience as soon as Chuck was in danger? But telling him off wouldn’t help. “I’m going in,” she said, grabbing a tray and filling it with a bunch of hot dogs.

The two men outside the store were watching her approach, but they were seeing a waitress delivering food, not a threat. Their eyes weren’t on her hands but on the hem of her skirt. Where she wanted them.

She flashed them a flirty smile when she reached them, then faked a stumble and threw the tray into the first man’s face. While the man screamed in surprise, she dived forward in a roll and swept the other man’s feet. 

He went down, and she jumped up, blocking the first man as he drew a pistol, taking him out with a palm strike to the face, then turned into a roundhouse kick to the second man’s temple just as he was trying to get back on his feet. “Two down,” she reported, dragging them into the bushes nearby.

“Going in,” Casey told her.

Good. She straightened and entered the store. Chuck was inside. And God help Colt if anything had happened to him.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More Catacombs, November 21st, 2007**

“If Jeff’s doing this, then we’re safe,” Lester suddenly said. “He won’t hurt us!”

“His traps don’t exactly come with IFF,” Chuck pointed out.

“What?”

“Identification friend or foe,” Chuck explained. “They cannot tell us from the…” he almost said ‘enemy spies’ “...bad guys.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, ‘oh’.” It was obvious, really. Hadn’t Lester ever played decent video games? “Anyway, we still need to find a way out of this maze.”

“Jeff can lead us out!” Lester exclaimed. “If this is his work, then he has to be close! JEFF! JEFF!” he started to scream. “JE…”

Chuck’s hand on his mouth shut him up. “Are you crazy?” he hissed. “If there’s one enemy here, it means they are near as well.” They wouldn’t have split up too much.

“Oh…”

Was that a light flickering in the next tunnel? Chuck flicked his phone off at once. Yes, definitely a light. Someone was coming. “Jeff?” he yelled.

No answer. Which was enough of an answer. “We need to go!” he hissed, switching his phone on. They couldn’t risk blindly running into a trap.

“Why did you yell? You told me not to yell!”

“I had to check if it was Jeff,” Chuck snapped, already running. The rails led back and were safe - but they would also lead the mercenaries straight to them. “In here!” he hissed as they reached an intersection.

Lester was panting again - they couldn’t run too far. 

But they could hide.

Chuck dragged Lester into a small side tunnel, barely wide enough for one man. A few turns later, he stopped, sitting down. Lester fell to his knees next to him, chest heaving for breath. “We’ll hide here,” Chuck said, flicking the phone off. Until Lester had recovered, at least.

He touched the ground, then rubbed his fingers together. Lots of dust. Not so much as to make breathing difficult, but… Dust. Ground.

He switched his phone on again and let the light shine on the ground behind them. Footprints.

They couldn’t hide, either.

“Lester, we need to go!” he whispered.

“What?” Lester sounded as if he was half-asleep.

“We can’t stay; we need to keep moving,” Chuck said.

“First, you say we need to run, then we need to wait, now we need to run again? You need to decide what you want!”

Lester really had a talent to get a second wind and a spine at the worst possible times. “You want to get shot?” Chuck snapped. “Get up!”

“But…”

"No buts!” They had to move. Chuck led them further down the tunnel. Just a little… He stopped at once, causing Lester to bump into him. “Watch out, here’s a trap!” he hissed as the other man started to complain.

“Oh.”

A quick check with the phone - which was starting to grow a little dimmer, Chuck noticed - revealed that there was a small strip of clear ground between the puddle of slime and the walls. “Careful,” Chuck said as he gingerly placed his foot on the clear ground.

Lester wobbled and almost fell as he followed Chuck.

“Careful!” Chuck repeated himself. “It’s not…”

A cone of light appeared behind them. The mercenaries!

One mercenary, Chuck realised - there was only one flashlight. And Lester was still inching past the puddle of slime. Chuck eyed the tunnel ahead, then clenched his teeth and sped up, passing the puddle in a few quick steps, then turning around to face the frozen Lester. “Jump!” Chuck snapped, holding out his hands. “I’ll drag you clear!”

“What?”

“Jump!”

“Are you crazy?”

“Here they are!” The cone of light swung around, blinding Chuck. And suddenly, Lester jumped.

Chuck reached out, grabbing the man, and both tumbled to the floor as a shot rang out, almost deafening Chuck in the narrow confines of the tunnel.

“Don’t move!” Chuck heard the mercenary yell. “I’ve got them!”

He had them. In the narrow tunnel, there was no cover. And the next corner was too far away. Not to mention that Lester, seemingly frozen - hopefully not shot - was still on top of Chuck. They were done for, as Casey would say. 

Unless…

Chuck waited with bated breath as the mercenary stepped closer. 

“No funny business or I’ll riddle you with holes. You made enough trouble for us!”

“Not enough, apparently,” Chuck said. He had to distract the man.

That caused a chuckle. “Oh, yes. I’ll take great… Oh…”

Chuck watched as the man froze, one foot in the puddle, the light from his barrel-mounted flashlight suddenly pointing to the ceiling. Then he collapsed. 

But more would be coming.

“Get off!” Chuck snapped. “We need to move!”

Once more, they ran - or stumbled, in Lester’s case - through the dimly lit, twisting tunnel. Chuck had lost all sense of direction, but, so far, they hadn’t run past any intersections. So, if needed, he could find the rails again. Not that he wanted to - the mercenaries had found the tracks as well.

But he clung to the idea that he wasn’t completely lost in this maze. That he still could find a way out. Theoretically. If there was a way out in the first place.

He shook his head. He had to stay positive. They were still alive. They had escaped from the mercenaries. And…

...they had just reached another large room. Chuck stopped, causing Lester to bump into him. “Watch it,” he hissed.

“What?” Lester managed to say between panting breaths.

“It’s a large room,” Chuck told him. “I can’t see the other side with my light.”

“What?” Lester pushed past him. “Can we stay here? Hide?”

Chuck checked the ground. Dusty. They were still leaving tracks. “No, we can’t.”

“But… Oh!”

A small light had appeared in the middle of the room - presumably; Chuck didn’t know how large the room was. And it looked like… an emergency exit sign? What?

“There’s the exit!” Lester cried out and started to run.

“No, wait! It’s a...” Chuck yelled, but it was too late - he heard Lester gasp, then saw him topple into a slime puddle. “...trap,” Chuck finished.

“Oops.”

Oops? Chuck dropped to the ground, extinguishing his light. Who had… “Jeff?”

“Chuck?”

That was Jeff. “Where are you?”

“Here.” 

Jeff lit a flashlight, and Chuck could see him in the middle of the room - and almost recoiled. The man was covered with slime. ‘Distant ancestor’, yeah, right. Chuck snorted and got up, then walked towards the half-demon, carefully watching his steps.

“There are no more traps on that side,” Jeff told him - after Chuck had already reached him.

“Good to know,” Chuck replied. “You, uh, look a little…” He waved his free hand around. “You know.”

“If people are hunting me for my blood, I will seek refuge in my blood,” Jeff declared.

“And it has nothing to do with the fact that like this, you can see in the dark.” 

Jeff’s eyebrows - what was visible beneath his slime layer - twitched. “Why are you here? You don’t have demon blood.”

“Ah, well…” Chuck cleared his throat. He couldn’t reveal CIA secrets to Jeff. The guy would spread them online on one forum or the other as soon as he got access to his computer. And if he wouldn’t do it, Lester would. “When a bunch of armed people came into the Buy More, I didn’t want to stay around. And then they started to chase Lester and me, and we just kept running. Until…” He pointed at the stuck and slimed Lester, who had a very disturbing expression of bliss on his face.

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t expect you to come here. Lester never did before.”

Before? Ah. “So this is where you installed your distillery when you moved it.” Chuck nodded in his best ‘cool spy’ imitation.

“How do you know about that?”

Chuck pointed at Lester.

“Oh.”

“An emergency exit sign?” Chuck asked. “Where did you get it?” And why would anyone expect others to fall for such an obvious trap?

“Err…”

Chuck sighed. Of course. “You stole it from the store.”

“I borrowed it.!”

“Like all the gear for your little drug lab here?” It was a shot in the dark, literally, in this case, but Chuck knew Jeff and Lester.

“Err... We’re product testing!”

“I think you tested your own product a little too often,” Chuck replied.

“You’re probably right.” Jeff nodded emphatically, sending a few drops of slime flying. “We should have gone gold with the product already.”

Chuck rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No, Jeff. Selling drugs is not a good idea. It tends to attract the attention of people who want to kill you.”

Jeff shook his head, and Chuck had to dodge a load of slime. “No, no! We checked - our product wouldn’t be illegal since it’s brand new!”

“I wasn’t actually talking about the police, Jeff,” Chuck explained. Jeff blinked but didn’t seem to get the hint. Chuck sighed and added: “I was talking about people like other drug dealers who don’t like competition.” And after the mess Melvin had created, Caridad would slay another drug-dealing demon in a heartbeat.

“Oh.”

“Yes, ‘oh’.” Chuck smiled toothly at Jeff. “Now… how about you get Lester unstuck and show us to the actual exit?”

“Oh… that’ll take a while.” Jeff winced.

“We can come back for Lester later,” Chuck said. “But I really need to get out of these catacombs.” He needed to contact Casey and Sarah as soon as possible.

“I think you should stay a little longer.”

Chuck froze. He knew this voice. Mr Colt. But how had they been able to approach them without their lamps being visible… “Infrared lamps, I suppose,” he said. Coupled with infrared goggles, they would have been able to see in the dark.

“Correct.” The mercenary sounded amused.

And, as normal lamps went on and bathed the entire room in their light, revealing not only Jeff and Lester’s pilfered equipment, but also a dozen mercenaries surrounding Chuck and Jeff, Chuck found that Mr Colt had every reason to be amused.

“You’ve made a lot of trouble for us,” the mercenary said, taking a step closer as his men kept their guns trained on Chuck and Jeff. “But now it’s time to…” He trailed off as his eyes fell on Jeff’s slime-covered form. 

Chuck could hear the mercenaries curse as they stared at the probably half-demon. “What the…” one of them - Vasquez - muttered.

“What is this?” Mr Colt asked. He didn’t look shocked, but definitely surprised. And slightly disturbed.

And this was his chance, Chuck realised. He put on the best arrogant expression he could manage and scoffed. “Are you telling me that you came here without any idea about Project S?”

“‘Project S’?” Mr Colt repeated his words with a frown.

“We like to joke that it stands for ‘secret’,” Chuck said, “though its actual designation is secret. But as you can see,” he added as he gestured to Jeff, “it’s been a success. Controlled contagious mutations.”

“Mutations?” one of the mercenaries gasped. Smith, Chuck remembered. 

“Unfortunately, one experimental subject escaped and hid down here,” Chuck said with a shrug. “Sunlight hurts their new skin, so it’s somewhat understandable. Quite a bother to track down, though, with all the traps.” He raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t think the traps were laid for you, did you? They were laid for us.” He pointed at Lester. “As you can see.”

“And who are you?”

“Agent Walsh,” Chuck lied. “But you’re asking the wrong question. Do you know which question you really need to ask?”

Mr Colt couldn’t resist, though his scowl told Chuck that the mercenary would make him pay for this. “And what would that be?”

“It’s: ‘Have I been immunised to all the mutagens polluting the area?’,” Chuck said “‘Or will I turn into a mutant myself?’”

The mercenaries were glancing at Jeff and at each other. They looked nervous - some even looked scared. “Moan!” Chuck whispered to Jeff.

“Uhh?” Jeff sounded more confused than in pain, at least to Chuck. But Fernandez crossed herself and seemed to mutter a quick prayer. Others were trembling.

“You’ve been inside the contaminated area for quite some time. Long enough to be contaminated yourself,” Chuck went on, trying to project the sort of confidence he really wished he had. “The mutation starts with shivering and sneezing. Then follows the itching on the skin, which soon turns into agony as slime glands grow and stretch, and it feels as if acid is covering your skin. It only lasts until your nerve ends die, of course. A day or two. Most test subjects survive, and some even keep their sanity.”

“God Almighty!”

“Gottverdammte Scheisse!”

“It can be treated if you get help quickly enough - but I’m the only one who can authorise such help. The only one who knows where you can get help.” Chuck grinned. “So, who wants to stay human?”

“How stupid do you think we are?” Mr Colt snapped. “You covered a friend of yours with the slime you made here, and then told us a bullshit story straight out of a comic book.”

Chuck could see how the mercenaries started to recover. And they looked angry. Damn. Time for plan B. But he didn’t have a Plan B. Or… “Trigger all your traps!” he whispered to Jeff. They could escape in the confusion.

“They don’t work like that,” Jeff replied. “They’re shallow pit traps.”

Meaning, he simply spread the slime out in puddles. Which Chuck should have known.

Mr Colt grinned again. “I will enjoy beating you to death with my bare hands,” he announced, cracking his knuckles again.

“That would be a very bad idea,” Chuck replied. There had to be a way out of this. Without fighting and dying to the huge mercenary.

But they were surrounded. Every exit was covered. 

This really didn’t look good.

“You should limber up a little,” Mr Colt said, baring his teeth. “Make it more of a challenge.”

“Uh…” Chuck licked his lips. “My doctor told me not to overdo it with sports.”

That earned him a chuckle as the man rolled his neck. “I don’t think that will be a problem any more.”

“Uh…”

Suddenly, there was a cracking sound and lamps went out, plunging the room into darkness. “Hit the deck!” Someone - Caridad - yelled.

Chuck dropped, yelling: “They’ve got infrared!”

More cracking sounds followed. People cursed.

Then the screaming and shooting began. Chuck covered his ears with his hands and pressed himself into the dusty ground as bullets came far too close to him judging by the stone shards that he felt hitting his skin. He couldn’t see a damned thing.

“Stay calm and fall back!” That was Mr Colt. “Rally at…” The mercenary was cut off mid-yell. That triggered more yelling. The mercenaries must be panicking with Colt out, Chuck realised.

Finally, the shooting and yelling stopped. Was it over? Or was that a trap?

“Hah! A dozen armed poachers down! Eat your heart out, Buffy!” Caridad yelled.

“Chuck, are you alright?”

That was Morgan! Chuck cautiously raised his head, but it was still pitch dark. “I’m OK but I can’t see anything,” he yelled back.

“Let me get the lights… should be somewhere… no… perhaps here? No. Where are the damned lights?”

“Don’t blame me, I had to break them to save Chuck!”

“I meant the ones Jeff installed. Where are the switches?”

“It’s on the right side.” Jeff was OK as well, then.

“Here?”

“No, the other right!”

“There’s just one right.”

“My right.”

Chuck snorted despite himself. Everyone seemed alright. Although… “Is Lester OK?” he asked. If they guy had been hurt while trapped...

“Oh… yes, he isn’t hurt. I think. No blood,” Jeff replied.

Chuck sighed with relief. Now they could finally leave this cursed place!

*****

Well, Chuck realised as Morgan finally managed to get the lights working, they couldn’t just leave. Not with about a dozen and a half knocked-out mercenaries who wouldn’t stay knocked out for much longer spread around the room.

“Hah! I knew you were a demon!”

And a Slayer who had just noticed that Jeff’s demon ancestry was a little more recent than he used to claim.

“Err...” 

Jeff took a few steps back, and Caridad advanced on him, baring her teeth. “Posing as a harmless human while building your lair here, huh?”

“Err… We were just trying to make a few bucks!”

“You’re a full demon? No, you’re a half-demon!” Morgan shook his head. “And I never noticed.” He winced. “Phil won’t be pleased when he hears about it.”

“Guys!” Chuck cut in.

“You fooled me!”

“Guys!” Chuck repeated himself. “We have a dozen armed bad guys we need to disarm and tie up before they wake up!”

“Right, the poachers.” Caridad cracked her knuckles. “Time to teach them that Los Angeles is my turf! No one hunts demons here without my leave!”

“We can use our product,” Jeff offered helpfully. “Takes them out and sticks them to the ground.” He pointed at Lester. “See?”

Chuck grimaced. Jeff was about to get himself killed.

“Product?” Caridad asked, frowning.

“Jeff and Lester were experimenting with his slime,” Chuck quickly explained. “As you can see, it didn’t work out. And I’m sure they won’t experiment any further, right?”

Jeff nodded vigorously, sending more drops of slime flying.

“And what were you trying to create?” Caridad narrowed her eyes. “Paralysing slime traps?” She growled. “Trying to capture people?”

"Err… no. We were…” Jeff trailed off.

“Whatever they were doing, they’re not doing it any more,” Chuck stepped in. He couldn’t let Caridad kill Jeff. The man was a half-demon, had lied to them about it, had stolen from the Buy More to create drugs and was an altogether creepy person, but he still was a co-worker. That didn’t sound very convincing, now that he thought about it. Although Jeff hadn’t done anything really bad. At least as far as Chuck knew. “Anyway, guys, focus - armed people in need of securing!”

Fortunately, the mercenaries had plenty of zip ties on them. Which raised a lot of unsettling questions. At least the looted weapons she had claimed for herself had put Caridad into a better mood, though Phil probably wouldn’t be happy about his Slayer getting such an arsenal. And storing half of it with the Watcher. But that wasn’t Chuck’s problem - he had to prioritise.

After the last stripped mercenary had been tied up with their own zip ties, Chuck stood up. “Now, let’s get back to the Buy More so, ah, I can call the police about those robbers.”

“Robbers?” Morgan asked.

“Yes. They came into the Buy More armed to the teeth, and they weren’t hunting Jeff for his blood, so what else could they be?” Chuck glared at his friend and then jerked his head towards Jeff, who wasn’t aware of the spy part of this mess.

“Oh! Of course, robbers!” Morgan beamed. “What else could they be, indeed?”

“Drug pushers trying to get our product?” Jeff asked.

Chuck closed his eyes.

“You were making drugs?” Caridad snarled.

“Err…” And Jeff bolted.

Great.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, November 21st, 2007**

Sarah stared at the tunnel in front of her. Who’d have thought there was an entire tunnel system below the Buy More? Which wasn’t on their maps and blueprints? The general wouldn’t be pleased to hear about this lapse. Next time Chuck told her about some ‘extended basement’, she’d personally check out the area.

Casey scoffed. “You could take out an entire company with a single squad down there. If you know the area and they don’t.”

She pressed her lips together. Chuck didn’t know the tunnels, not well enough. “We’re wasting time.” Time Chuck didn’t have - it had already taken too long to get the captured mercenaries to tell them what they knew about Chuck’s escape. She gripped her SMG, taken from a mercenary who didn’t need it any more, and nodded at Casey. “We’ll do a standard sweep.”

“I so missed playing tunnel rat.” Casey grinned. “Had a great time hunting insurgents in Afghanistan.”

Sarah snorted. Casey might be joking, but he knew as well as she did that the odds of finding Chuck in that maze were bad. But they had to try. She took a step towards the entrance, past the broken down barrier, when her phone vibrated. Who would call... Chuck! It was his number! “Chuck?” she blurted out before she could control herself.

“Hi, Sarah!”

She felt a wave of relief. He was alive. Safe - probably. “Where are you?”

“Uh… we’re in one of the storm drains. Not too far from the Buy More.”

‘We’? She checked his locator - it showed up about a mile away. “How are you?”

“I’m alright,” he said.

“I saved him!” a familiar and unwanted, loud voice cut in.

“Caridad! I’m talking!” Sarah heard Chuck complain.

“Tell her I solved their problem!”

Sarah clenched her teeth. “Chuck? What happened?”

“Uh… Mr Colt must have recognised my car and tracked it to the Buy More. He chased us - Lester and me - into the catacombs, where Jeff had laid out traps for the poachers. So, they stumbled into the traps, and Caridad took out the rest.”

“Most of them! I took out almost all of them!”

“You captured them?” Sarah asked.

“Uh, yes. But they are a little heavy, and we only have one mine cart to transport them…”

“Mine cart?” She shook her head. “Never mind. We’re coming to your position.”

Chuck was safe. That was all that mattered. 

But she couldn’t help wishing it had been her, not Caridad, who saved him.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, November 21st, 2007**

“Congratulations, agents, Mr Bartowski. Capturing Mr Colt’s entire cell is no mean feat. As soon as he has recovered, we will start his interrogation. And we will find out what he knows about Fulcrum.”

The general didn’t look as pleased as her words would make you believe, Chuck noted. Her expression when she mentioned the mercenaries’ interrogation was actually terrifying. Or disturbing.

But everyone was smiling and nodding, including him. Because that was what you did when you had won despite the odds. And when you didn’t want your superiors to ask too many questions.

“However, the unknown drugs they were subjected to is a source of concern for our medical staff and might delay the interrogations,” Beckman went on. Her eyes narrowed.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find whoever created the drugs,” Sarah said.

Chuck nodded. It wasn’t quite a lie - Jeff was still hiding inside the tunnels. Whether that was because of Caridad, the demon-hunters, or both Chuck didn’t know.

“I see.” The frown on the general’s face told Chuck that she probably suspected that this was related to the Council. “If you find out anything about this substance, inform me at once.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Chuck said.

“Good evening, agents, Mr Bartowski.”

Chuck sighed and slumped slightly in his seat. “That could’ve gone better, I think.”

Casey snorted. “With the idiots involved? Hardly.”

That wasn’t fair. Chuck’s frown was ignored, though. “Well, at least I think this whole affair proved one thing.”

Casey didn’t take the bait, but Sarah did. “Yes?”

“That staying in the car isn’t safe at all,” Chuck explained. “As I said before, remember?”

Unfortunately, neither of the two spies seemed to share his conclusion.

*****


	3. The Software Specialist

**California, Burbank, The Castle, November 26th, 2007**

He was in pain. Knocked down on the ground, suffering. He could feel a bruise forming where his leg had been kicked. Just moving hurt. He was doomed, and it was all his own damn fault.

This had been a mistake. Chuck should have listened to Sarah and Casey and everyone else. He should have stayed home. 

“Are you alright?”

He forced himself to smile as he rolled onto his back. “Just catching my breath,” he managed to say. “I’m a little more out of shape than I thought.”

“We can always take a break and continue later. Or tomorrow,” Sarah said. She didn’t look beaten at all. Nor exhausted. Even though she had run five miles with him, and then had spent half an hour knocking him across the mat. She looked like she was just warming up.

And she also looked great in yoga pants and a crop top. 

“No, no, I’m OK,” he said, forcing himself to smile at her. “‘The more you sweat, the less you bleed’, right?” He started to get up, but his stomach muscles chose this moment to cramp, and his smile died as he groaned with pain and fell back on the mat.

“Chuck?” Sarah knelt at his side before he managed to stop holding his stomach. “Are you hurt?”

“Just a… cramp. I think,” he said.

“Break time,” she told him.

“Break time,” he agreed with a grimace. “Is there a coke left in the fridge?”

“I’ll get one,” she told him, patting his shoulder before she stood and left the training room in The Castle.

He closed his eyes and whimpered. A little. This shouldn’t hurt so much. He had always been good at running, after all - it was a survival trait in Sunnydale. And high school. But, apparently, that didn’t translate into being fit enough to fight. Certainly not on Sarah’s level.

Which he’d have to be if he wanted to be more than a walking database. A walking database which only worked randomly, not reliably.

Sarah returned with a bottle and a towel. And another draped around her neck. As if she had worked up a sweat.

“You read Adams, I see,” he said, trying not to wince as he grabbed the bottle.

“I did. Although it’s been a while since I read ‘Thoughts on Government’,” she said as she sat down next to him.

“I meant Douglas Adams. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” he explained before taking a large swallow of the coke. “Always have a towel with you.”

“Ah. I haven’t read much science fiction.”

“It’s a classic.”

“You say that about every book or movie you like,” she replied with a smirk.

“Well… they are!” he defended himself.

“I’ll bow to your experience.”

“Good. Because if I had to bow to yours, my stomach muscles would kill me.”

“No pain, no gain,” she said.

“That sounds like something Casey would say,” Chuck remarked.

“With good reason,” she replied with a grin that looked a little too toothy in his opinion.

He groaned again.

She shook her head with a smile. “It’ll get better… eventually.”

“That’s very comforting.”

Sarah shrugged before doing some stretches on the mat. “You wanted to get trained. Better do it right. Can’t half-ass things in combat. And you should stretch as well, or you’ll feel worse tomorrow.”

“Uh…” Chuck winced just at the thought of forcing his aching muscles into contortions.

“Come on!”

She was like a female Captain Awesome. Well, she was awesome, of course. He blinked. “Uh… I just remembered.”

“It’s not another appointment, is it?” Sarah frowned.

“Sort of. For us,” he said. “We still need to decorate our apartment.”

Hearing her groan in response felt strangely satisfying.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, November 26th, 2007**

“What’s wrong with the living room?” Chuck asked. His apartment was fine. Really. Granted, the furniture was mostly IKEA, but the couch was comfortable. You could even sleep on it - Morgan had done so often enough when his mother had had someone over he couldn’t stand. And the TV was the latest generation, perfect for Medal of Honour.

“It’s not a living room. It’s a gaming room,” Sarah replied.

“Well, it’s both.”

She looked pointedly at the dining table pushed against the wall behind the couch.

“I usually eat at Ellie’s,” he said. “But we can easily push the table a little to the centre of the room, move the couch a little, replace the sideboards and…” He sighed. “Alright, it’s a gaming room.”

She nodded in agreement. “And we need to turn it into a living room.”

“A living room where we can play games as well,” Chuck insisted. This was part of him. And Morgan.

“Speaking of playing games, we need a bedroom for two,” she said with a grin.

“Uh… sure.” His own bed was rather cramped with the two of them. Not that he really minded, of course.

“I’m thinking of turning your ‘storage room’ into a bedroom.” 

“Uh…” He knew his smile was rather weak. “That was supposed to be temporary after I moved in. But, well… I didn’t really need the room for anything else, so…” He shrugged. It was true - between his bedroom, where his computer and desk were, and the living room, he hadn’t really had any use for the third room. “Also, half of the stuff there is not mine, but Ellie’s.”

“Ah.”

He wasn’t quite certain how to interpret her expression. “Anyway, we can turn that into a bedroom.” And see if his sis liked it once she had to find space for all that junk in her apartment.

“With a desk for me,” she added.

“Of course.” That was only fair.

“And a big armoire. And a dresser.”

“Uh, sure.” He blinked. “You seem to have this interior decorating thing down pat.”

She frowned at him. “Those are just the essentials. We still have to decide on the style.”

Oh. “Of course,” he agreed. “And do you have an idea yet?”

Perhaps he had asked a little too sharply since her frown deepened some. “Less Nintendo.”

“That’s more what you don’t want, not what you want,” he pointed out.

“Yes, it is.” She beamed at him.

“Ah.”

“I’m not saying to get rid of all your merchandise,” she went on.

“Good. Because some of it will be worth a lot in a few years!” It was an investment. Gaming merchandise from the eighties was worth a lot today. Not that he’d ever sell his vintage Tron poster.

“But it’s better used a little more sparingly. We can store the rest.”

He bit down on his first response. She was only making the apartment theirs, instead of his. “I guess we do need the space for your things.”

Weirdly, Sarah winced at that.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, November 26th, 2007**

“I still have trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that you don’t have anything you’d like to move into our apartment.”

Sarah sighed and rolled her eyes. It was getting annoying. “Let it drop, Chuck. I told you, I was always moving, so I don’t have a room full of stuff in my apartment.” And she had always been ready to move. Just in case.

“You probably just don’t want others to know that you collect plush animals,” Chuck said with a slightly forced-looking smile.

But she accepted his peace proposal and laughed. “Of course!”

Casey was already in The Castle, cleaning one of his guns. He grunted a greeting at them. “Trouble getting rid of his toys?”

“ _We_ ’re not getting rid of my _valuable merchandise_ ,” Chuck corrected him.

The other agent scoffed. “Geek toys aren’t valuable.”

“See, that’s where you are wrong!” Chuck retorted. “Many so-called geeks are earning high incomes, and are quite willing to spend a lot of money on nostalgia. That a fact.”

“Good for you. You’ll be able to get rid of your crap and make a profit, then.”

“I told you, it’s not crap!”

“He’s just jealous that his signed picture of Reagan is worth less than your first-edition Nintendo,” Sarah said.

Chuck opened his mouth, probably to correct her about the name of his video game console, when he saw her smirk. His pout looked cute.

Then the general appeared on the screen - it still hurt a little to not see the director there as well - and the briefing started.

“Good evening, agents, Mr Bartowski. I’ll be brief. We have discovered that a Fulcrum agent stole one of the backups for the Intersect. Fortunately, it’s encrypted so they won’t be able to use the information. However, according to our information, they have hired a specialist, Von Hayes, to decrypt the data. You will infiltrate his home and retrieve the stolen data before he can finish his task.”

Sarah nodded. A standard retrieval mission.

“Agent Walker, Mr Bartowski, you will be posing as a freshly married couple. Agent Casey will be posing as a waiter.”

That was a surprise. Sarah was about to protest Chuck’s inclusion - he wasn’t trained for this, and she was certain the general had an ulterior motive for the assignment - but then she saw Chuck’s smile and held her tongue.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, November 26th, 2007**

A freshly married couple. Sarah and himself. Trying to get some privacy which would provide them with the excuse to wander around in Hayes’s home and search the stolen data. Chuck liked that idea. It was also an easy cover, in his opinion.

Sarah glanced towards him for a moment, then focused back on the road. “Hm?”

Oh. He must have said that out loud, Chuck realised. “I meant it’ll be an easy cover story,” he repeated. “Freshly married?”

“Ah.” She didn’t sound as optimistic or enthusiastic, though. “It might be a little more difficult than you expect.”

He refrained from frowning. “Difficult?” He could play the affectionate newly-wed husband. He just had to be - mostly - himself. Did she mean she had trouble with this? Did that mean she didn’t feel...

“It’s easier to get distracted if there are real emotions,” she went on, and he felt his heart beating again and his stomach recovering. “We’ll have to both make it look believable and remain alert and focused on our mission.”

He nodded, leaning back as they entered the road leading to their home. “Of course.” He could do that. How difficult could it be?

*****

**California, Burbanks, Buy More, November 27th, 2007**

Jeff, who had finally been coaxed out of the maze below the Buy More a few days ago, and Lester were not only already present, but actually behind the computer at the Nerd Herd desk, apparently working hard when Chuck arrived in the morning. That meant they were up to no good, as Chuck’s long experience with the two Nerd Herders told him.

They didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the store, which made it easy for him to sneak up on them despite his muscles still aching a little from last evening’s training. He peered over their shoulders at the screen and had to make an effort not to gasp in surprise - they were actually looking over the scheduled tech support calls for today. He had expected them to watch porn on company time and money.

Which meant that they had been possessed, replaced by doppelgangers, or they had some scheme going that required legit work. He cleared his throat, and both of them gasped and jerked, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Chuck! Good morning! Excellent morning, actually! So good we decided to come in early, and do some early hard work, right?” Lester babbled.

Jeff nodded rapidly.

Definitely something fishy going on. Chuck crossed his arms and stared at them, trying to project Casey.

“Uh…” Lester swallowed, growing a little pale, and Jeff started to sweat, looking around.

“Out with it, guys: What is your scheme?” Chuck snapped.

“Uh… scheme? What scheme?” Jeff tried to lie at the same time Lester said: “It was his idea. I told him it wasn’t the best idea, but...”

“Hey! It was your idea!”

“No, it wasn’t!”

“Guys!”

“It was.”

“I had a hypothetical idea!”

“Guys!” Chuck snapped, slapping his hand down on the desk and rattling the screen. “What is your scheme?”

“We hope to sell enough discounted music equipment to a new music school to get to use their rehearsal room for free!” Lester blurted out.

“I didn’t know we had so much discounted music equipment,” Chuck said. Discounts usually were applied to TVs and stereos - things that tended to become obsolete quite quickly and attracted customers to the store.

“Err... we kind of…” Jeff swallowed.

“It’s a proposal,” Lester cut in. “A well prepared, well-thought-out proposal, with everything ready so, should you think it’s a good idea, you can implement it with one mouse click.”

Both were beaming very forced smiles at him.

Chuck clenched his teeth. “You were trying to make it look like I had approved of this.” Big Mike would have had his head. Well, the CIA would probably have stepped in, but still, Jeff and Lester wouldn’t know that - they still thought Mr Colt’s mercenaries had been robbers. They hadn’t even had to use the second cover story, of Chuck accidentally taking their hard drive with all their banking information with him during a tech support job.

“No, no, honest, we weren’t!”

“It was his idea.”

Both were backing up rapidly - until they bumped into Casey, who had come up from behind them. “Trouble, Bartowski?” he asked in a growling voice, gripping their shoulders and keeping them from fleeing.

Chuck smiled as the two miscreants whimpered.

*****

**California, Malibu Beach, Hayes Villa, November 28th, 2007**

Hayes was living the life Chuck had, once, before his expulsion from Stanford, expected to live. The life of Charles Carmichael: A semi-retired, rich computer specialist with a villa on the beach. It was a great villa, too - floor to ceiling windows, free view of the sea, large pool in the garden, and almost enough bedrooms to fit a basketball team.

Of course, Chuck hadn’t planned to make his money helping various criminals, as Hayes was supposedly doing, but he hadn’t planned to be taking part in a CIA operation on US soil either, had he?

On the other hand, his plans - more like dreams - for a girlfriend had been rather vague, he added to himself when he glanced at Sarah. She looked perfect in her hot red dress, slit all the way to her hip on one side. Classy but sexy. Oh, if this were a real date… It provided easy access to the thigh-holster on her other leg as well.

But he was on a mission, so he grabbed a glass from a passing waitress and took a sip. “The style clashes a little with the other art,” he commented in a not quite bored tone, nodding at a particularly ugly painting, “but it has a certain je ne sais quoi.”

Sarah, trained spy she was, didn’t snort and nodded in agreement, but after a few days spent picking prints for their apartment, he could tell that she shared his real opinion.

“Good eye!” one of the other guests - a businessman Chuck hadn’t flashed on, but that didn’t mean he was clean - commented. “I have a piece by the same artist myself.”

“Worth looking into, then,” Chuck said, wrapping an arm around Sarah’s waist and pulling her closer, “since we have a little love nest to decorate!”

Sarah nodded, running a hand over his back. “Oh, yes,” she breathed more than she talked, “we found the perfect home over near Hollywood. But the furniture is so out of date!”

“We’ve been looking for an interior decorator, but we keep getting distracted,” Chuck added with a wide grin, flashing his fake wedding band with all the subtlety of the nouveaux riches.

That earned them understanding smiles from the other guests, as they walked over to the buffet. “Nothing in this room,” Chuck reported in a whisper. “Moving on to the other rooms.”

“Roger,” Casey, posing as a waiter, replied through their comms.

They grabbed some of the excellent hors-d’oeuvres, putting on a little show of feeding each other a bite, then snuck away from the party’s other guests. Sarah pulled him into a small alcove next to the stairs, and they kissed, arms wrapped around each other. She rubbed her leg over his thigh, and he ran his hands over her bare back. Oh…

Both were breathing heavily when they pulled apart, and Chuck was really grateful that he was wearing a tailored suit.

“So…” She glanced around. “Anything?”

What? Oh, yes. The mission. He shook his head. “No.” He hadn’t flashed on anything. He hadn’t looked at much, either, but he didn’t think Hayes would hide the stolen data in the hallway or on the stairs. “Perhaps we should go somewhere a little more private?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she replied.

Chuck didn’t flash on anything upstairs in the hallway, the small sitting room, on the balcony, or in the home cinema room - not quite as up to date as the one in the Buy More, he noticed. But both needed to adjust their clothes a few times, and Sarah’s hairstyle looked a little less perfect now. And Chuck really, really wanted to check Hayes’s bedroom. Or any bedroom.

Which wasn’t a bad idea, of course - plenty of people hid things in the bedroom. “We should look for his bed,” he whispered. “Or his desk.”

Sarah nodded, and he caught her licking her lips. “Yes, we should.”

They found Hayes’s desk first. Which was the perfect height, Chuck noted. Or would have been, if they weren’t on a mission.

“Anything?” Sarah asked, looking around.

Chuck shook his head. The office was perfectly ordinary, down to the boring art on the walls. “Safe behind the blue painting,” he commented.

“Did you flash?”

“No. But the wall’s thick enough there, without any need for it.” Studying interior decoration had its uses.

She nodded. “Cracking it will take some…” She trailed off, looking towards the door. “Someone’s coming,” she hissed.

Damn. Chuck looked around. Perhaps they could hide under the desk?

But Sarah grabbed him and dragged him to the desk. 

Of course, their cover!

Chuck didn’t have to act flustered when, less than a minute later, the door was opened, and Hayes and a woman stared at them. “Uh… you see, we were looking for….” he started to say as Sarah readjusted her dress.

Then he flashed on the woman. And blinked, trying to hide his reaction. She was ‘Juliette’ - a Fulcrum agent! A highly-skilled assassin!

Hayes shook his head, grimacing, and stared at his desk. “I work here!” he blurted out.

“Uh, sorry…” Chuck forced himself to smile. “We were, you know, just… uh, we haven’t actually…”

“Get out!” Hayes snapped.

“Getting out! Getting out!” Chuck said as he walked - quite quickly - past the man and the assassin, followed by Sarah.

As soon as they were out of the office, with the door closed behind them, Chuck turned. “Sarah!” he whispered. “That’s Juliette, a Fulcrum agent! She must be here to get the stolen data!”

Sarah nodded. “Let’s talk there,” she whispered back, glancing towards another small alcove.

“Uh, ok.” Shouldn’t they charge inside and take her down?

“Cover me!” Sarah whispered, stepping into the alcove. He followed, blocking her from view, as she pulled out an earbud. “I placed a microphone under his seat,” she whispered.

Oh. Of course she would have thought ahead.

She handed another bud to him, then hugged him as they listened.

_“…is my chip?”_

_“I’m working on the data. You don’t crack the best encryption the CIA has in a few days!”_

_“You did it before.”_

_“They changed their codes.”_

_“But not their encryption algorithm. What game are you playing, Mr Hayes?”_

_“I’m not playing any game! I just didn’t manage to decrypt the data, yet. I’ve got obligations as well! It’ll be ready tomorrow!”_

_“That’s a really precise estimate for such a complicated cypher, isn’t it?”_

_“What?”_

_“I think you already decrypted the data, and now you’re considering looking for another buyer, Mr Hayes.”_

_“That’s preposterous!”_

_“Is it? Where is the chip? It’s not in your computer.”_

_“What? You broke into my…”_

_“Where is the chip?”_

_“If you kill me, you’ll never find it!”_

Chuck gasped. They had to intervene! They had to… He heard running steps. Someone was coming! Several people!

_“If you don’t hand the chip over at once, you’ll wish I’d kill you.”_

Before he could think of what to do, Sarah was kissing him. Oh, of course. Their cover.

He saw three men run past him, towards Hayes’s office, pistols drawn. Hayes must have alerted them, somehow. They didn’t hesitate and charged straight into the room.

_“Drop the...”_

Shots rang out, someone screamed, and Sarah pushed past him, her own pistol drawn already, and ran towards the office. He followed her, but she was outpacing him.

One of Hayes’s bodyguards was on the ground in the hallway, a pool of blood spreading out beneath him. Sarah reached the door and dived inside. More shots followed.

He reached the door himself and peered around the frame. Another bodyguard was down, Sarah was shooting - he could just see her arms - and… He gasped. Something round was flying towards him. A grenade!

He threw himself into the room, away from the door, and landed on the floor, hands pressed against his ears, a moment before the grenade went off and he felt as if someone had hit his back while smoke and dust filled the room.

“Chuck?”

Coughing, he managed to answer. “Sarah?” He was lying in something wet. Wet and sticky. He blinked. Blood. He was lying in a pool of blood. Oh my God! He had been hurt! He was bleeding! He blinked. No, he wasn’t hurting. And he could move. 

He quickly patted himself down, trying to cover his back. It didn’t hurt. Not much. Nothing like a wound bleeding so much should… 

The dust settled, and he realised that he was lying in the blood of the third bodyguard. He scrambled back, trying not to retch.

“Chuck!”

“It’s not my blood!” he yelled. “Where’s Hayes?” He couldn’t see either Juliette or Hayes. But the door to the balcony was open.

“Hayes is running, chased by a Fulcrum agent, Juliette,” Sarah reported - to Casey, Chuck realised. “They were heading towards the garage.” She looked at Chuck.

He managed to get on his feet. That was one suit ruined. “Let’s go!” he said, with more confidence than he felt. He didn’t want to look back at what was left of the bodyguard in the hallway, where the grenade had gone off.

After a moment’s hesitation, Sarah nodded, turned, and vaulted over the railing.

Chuck suppressed a gasp and ran after her - though he lowered himself from the railing first, before jumping the rest of the way. He wasn’t armed, anyway, and if he broke an ankle, he would be completely useless.

He reached the garage in time to see a Lamborghini race away, with Casey and Sarah shooting at it. And Chuck flashed.

“The chip! It’s hidden on his car keys!” he blurted out.

“Good work, Bartowski,” Casey grumbled. “If we’d have known this half an hour earlier, it would have been actually useful.”

“I can’t control my flashes!” Chuck retorted. He was doing the best he could.

“Well, work on that. We can’t afford to fail our missions,” the agent replied, walking off while Chuck shook his head.

“That’s…”

“Chuck? Are you alright?”

He glanced at Sarah. She looked a little dishevelled. More than she had been. “Are _you_ alright?”

“I fought Juliette,” she said. “She escaped, though.”

Hayes and the Fulcrum agent escaped? The general wouldn’t be pleased.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, November 28th, 2007**

The general wasn’t pleased, indeed. “You lost the chip, Hayes and the enemy agent. In other words, this mission was a complete failure.”

Chuck glanced at the others. Casey nodded, but Sarah merely stared at the screen. Neither seemed to be about to say anything, though, so Chuck spoke up. “Uh, we confirmed the location of the chip, general. That’s more than we had.”

“And we prevented Fulcrum from obtaining it,” Sarah added.

The general’s frown deepened. “That the mission could have failed in an even worse way isn’t a particularly convincing argument,” she said. “While we are searching for him, realistically, we can only hope that Hayes has been disillusioned enough by the near assassination to seek our protection.”

Casey grumbled something Chuck didn’t catch, but the man nodded again, as did Sarah.

“Dismissed, agents, Mr Bartowski.”

Chuck sighed as the screen turned dark. “That was a little unfair, wasn’t it?”

“We failed the mission,” Casey snapped.

“It wasn’t our fault,” Chuck retorted. Once more, he glanced at Sarah.

“We stuck to our orders, which were finding the chip’s location,” she said. That didn’t sound like rousing support to Chuck.

Casey scoffed. “You should have taken out the enemy agent as soon as you saw her.”

“I only told her when we were outside the office,” Chuck pointed out.

Casey seemed to ignore him, though. “You didn’t because that would have put Bartowski at risk, did you?”

She didn’t! “Sarah?” Chuck asked, staring at her.

“I decided to gather more information. I didn’t want to risk the mission if it turned out that Hayes didn’t have the chip on him.”

Casey didn’t seem to believe her. “You were far quicker to act on other missions. We can’t afford to have you play babysitter instead of doing your job. And Bartowski got almost killed today anyway.” 

“Chuck did well. It wasn’t his fault,” Sarah shot back.

“No, it was yours.” Casey scoffed again and left The Castle.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, November 28th, 2007**

“I’m not a hindrance, am I?” Chuck asked as they were leaving The Castle.

Sarah had expected the question ever since Casey’s accusations. “No, you’re not,” she told him, trying to sound as convincing as she could. She wasn’t exactly lying, either.

“But if you had been with Casey, you would have stopped Juliette and Hayes.”

He was too damn perspective for his own good. Sarah shook her head. “He wouldn’t have spotted the chip. Nor would he have recognised the enemy spy.”

He didn’t seem to be listening. “And you wouldn’t have waited to see if he were really alright if he had told you he was fine.”

Casey was expendable, and Chuck wasn’t. Chuck was the Intersect. “We can’t lose you,” she told him. I can’t lose you. “You’re the Intersect.”

After a moment, he nodded. “But I’m no real spy, and that is a hindrance.”

“You’re working on that.” And he wasn’t doing badly - for a civilian.

“But is it enough? How long until I’m a real spy?” She was about to point out that many spies had less training than he was getting when he added: “I mean like you and Casey.”

“That will take a long while,” she said. “But the level we were when we started? That’s entirely possible.” She reached out and touched his cheek. “It still won’t be easy, though.”

“As long as I don’t have to go to Parris Island,” he said.

It wasn’t a very good joke, and he didn’t look like he thought it was very funny himself, but she laughed anyway.

It was progress.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, November 29th, 2007**

Chuck was feeling worse the next morning when he arrived at the Buy More. He shouldn’t have been training this morning, not after a mission. But he'd had to do something. Anything. Though two sets of bruises didn’t help. And Sarah might have been a little too enthusiastic as well.

Seeing Caridad in a Buy More uniform, though, made him forget about his bruises and aching muscles at once. “What?” he asked. Very eloquently.

She grinned - she wasn’t tired, of course. Nor bruised. Slayers healed fast and didn’t need much sleep. “Hi, Chuck!”

“What are you doing here?”

She pouted, but she was faking; he knew her well enough to tell. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Not when you’re wearing a stolen Buy More uniform,” he replied.

“It’s not stolen,” Morgan cut in. When had he arrived? And so early in the morning? “She’s an official employee!”

“Temporary, of course,” Caridad explained as Chuck blinked.

“Why…” She wouldn’t be doing this just to chase him, would she? No. So… “The demon hunters,” he stated.

“Yes!” She grinned. “The poachers went after Jeff in his favourite bar, so they know who he is. Which means they know where he works since he usually goes straight there from work.”

“He’s holed up in the catacombs again, isn’t he?” Chuck asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Both his friends nodded. “Safely out of the way,” Morgan added, “while we wait for the poachers to make a move.”

And he was down one Nerd Herder again. Chuck sighed.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Atwater Village, November 30th, 2007**

Chuck wasn’t certain that he should be at the meeting. He wasn’t a trained spy. Not even a half-trained. Perhaps a ten percent trained. Mostly theory. And he felt like a fake wearing the black pants and turtleneck outfit - unlike Sarah’s, his didn't hide a ton of weapons. But after Casey’s remarks about him, Chuck wouldn’t say anything. Besides, he was the only one who could identify the chip - with or without flashing. 

So, he was pulling his weight. Sort of. As a geek. And only because Bryce was dead, or Bryce could have done this - he had also been at Stanford, and he had even graduated. Chuck sighed as he leaned against the black sedan they were using for this mission and stared at the construction site around them.

“Don’t worry, Chuck,” Sarah said with a smile. “Hayes will show up. We’re the only ones who can protect him against Fulcrum.” 

This wasn’t the time to correct her misperceptions about the reasons for his sombre mood, so he nodded. “I just feel a little exposed,” he not-quite-lied.

“Casey’s on overwatch with a sniper rifle.”

“Wouldn’t help against a blood sucker.” In Sunnydale, this would have been suicide. Hanging out at a deserted construction site at night? Might as well slather yourself with ketchup and enter a demon bar. Heh, he hadn’t really thought about Sunnydale in some time.

“It will help if I blow their heads clean off, and this rifle can do this,” Chuck heard Casey in his ear bud. “No head means they dust.”

“Dusting? You’re talking like a Scoobie!” Chuck replied, forcing himself to grin - the NSA agent could see him, after all. “Caridad’s rubbing off on you?”

Casey scoffed but didn’t answer. Chuck counted that as a point.

Sarah rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she did it. He was about to defend himself - a little teasing helped build a team, after all, as the Buy More crowd demonstrated - when he heard a car engine and Sarah’s smile vanished.

Showtime.

Hayes was in his Lamborghini. Sloppy, Chuck thought. Even he knew that the car had been compromised, whether or not Juliette had seen the man drive off. “I can see why he needs help,” he whispered as he pushed off their own, far less conspicuous car and assumed a more spy-like pose. Carmichael time.

Hayes got out of his car with a suitcase in hand. “Mr and Mrs Carmichael?” he asked. He hadn’t changed clothes either, or so it seemed. Survival instincts of a lemming, Casey would say, even though that was actually a myth based upon a stupid fake nature documentation.

Chuck nodded. “Yes. Sorry about your desk, but we were maintaining our cover,” he added with a grin.

Hayes chuckled, but it didn't sound convincing. “I don’t think I’ll ever have the opportunity to use that desk again anyway.”

Chuck nodded again. “It wouldn’t be advisable. Do you have the chip?” he asked, glancing at the suitcase, but looking for the man’s keychain. There!

“Yes. As long as you get me out of this, it’s yours.”

“We keep our side of a deal.” Most of the time. When it was convenient. Chuck knew that thanks to the Intersect. Still, Hayes would be safe - if the CIA broke such deals, they wouldn’t get many more deserters once it’d spread. And it would.

“Good. So, how do we do this?”

“You’ll come with us. Ditch the car,” Sarah explained. “We’ll take you to a safe house and then set up a new identity for you.”

“And the money?” Hayes asked.

“Part of your new identity,” Sarah replied. “We’ll…”

“Incoming!” Casey’s voice interrupted them. “Two cars just drove through the southern gate.”

What? How had Fulcrum managed to find them? Only Chuck’s team, the General and Hayes knew about this…

“Did you contact Fulcrum?” Sarah asked with a snarl.

Hayes growing pale and starting to tremble was answer enough. “But… they couldn’t track me!” He whirled, starting to run towards his car when the first shots rang out from above

Chuck was already moving, charging forward and tackling Hayes before the man managed to open the door of his car. They rolled over the dusty concrete and Chuck grabbed Hayes’s keychain. “Stay with us if you want to live!” he snapped.

Sarah was at their side, gun drawn and looking around. Chuck heard shots fired, then metal getting torn and warped.

“One car dealt with,” Casey announced. “Changing position.”

Which meant there was one car full of enemies left.

“Get to the car!” Sarah snapped.

Chuck didn’t argue. “Get up!” he yelled, pulling at Hayes. The man had gone limp.

“But… how did they track me?”

“Worry later! We have to get away!”

Sarah was shooting now, covering them.

Despite her fire, bullets struck the concrete near their feet as Chuck reached their car. Hayes shrieked, but Chuck dragged him on. You didn’t stop when running or you died. 

He reached the car, ducking his head as a few more bullets ricocheted off the concrete around them, and pulled the door open. “Get inside!”

Hayes crawled inside and Chuck had to push him to the passenger side. “Sarah!”

“Get Hayes to safety! We’ll extract on foot!” she yelled back.

Chuck hesitated a moment. Leaving Sarah? In the middle of a fight? But… She was the trained spy. He had to trust her. And do his job. Like a spy.

He gunned the engine, trying to ignore the shots pinging against the armoured windows and sides, and drove away.

And felt like a coward.

*****

Sarah crouched behind the Lamborghini, performing a tactical reload. That left her with one full magazine in her pistol, and a half-full in her belt. 

And a highly-skilled assassin hiding in the half-built mall in front of her. She would have to remember to pack more ammunition next time.

“Relocating,” she heard Casey through their radio.

“Copy,” she replied. The other agent would take a few minutes to reach another sniping spot, though, since he couldn’t leave the back of the building open and allow Juliette to escape. 

And the assassin would try to escape, now that Chuck - sensibly - had retreated with Hayes.

Sarah took a deep breath and used the bent mirror on the sports car to check the front of the unfinished building. Juliette would know Casey was moving. And she had seen him take out her minions.

But the enemy agent had fought Sarah. And that had been a close, ultimately inconclusive fight. Would she try to go through her, or try to go through Casey?

Sarah grinned despite herself. Juliette would want a rematch, Sarah was certain - she wanted one herself, after all.

And she had prepared for it. Juliette liked to use grenades. Both to provide cover for herself, and to kill her enemies. But she’d have to get closer to throw one.

Sarah slid around the car and took cover behind its engine block, scanning the building in front of her. Where… There! Something small and round was arcing towards Sarah.

She reacted at once, vaulting over the car to take cover on the other side. And triggering the explosives she and Casey had set inside the unfinished mall beforehand.

The grenade went off behind her, wrecking the sports car, as the pressure wave from her charges washed over her. Ears ringing, she jumped up and charged forward, gun ready. Juliette had been around… She stopped and stared, pressing her lips together.

“Juliette’s been neutralised,” she informed Casey.

“Guess she could dish it out but couldn’t take it, huh?”

Sarah ignored the quip. “Chuck, status?” His radio should still be in range, if barely.

“Uh… we’re on the highway, as planned,” he said, the last part telling her that they had the chip.

“Good. Proceed to the safe house.”

She flicked her radio off as Casey rounded the corner. He raised an eyebrow at Juliette’s remains, but didn’t react otherwise.

“Chuck did good,” Sarah told him.

She took his grunt as grudging agreement.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 1st, 2007**

Chuck was already missing the shelf full of his gaming merchandise and selected boxes. And the Master Chief’s helmet had been banished to his room from his place of honour on the living room wall. And half his movie posters - gone.

“Is this still crooked?”

Sarah’s question startled him, and as he looked up, he found her frowning at him from her perch on top of the ladder, holding the painting that was replacing his Super Mario Bros poster. “Uh… no, no, it’s fine.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “We should have bought the mechanic’s level,” she said.

“No, no, it’s not crooked. Really.” He smiled at her.

He was missing his posters and toys. And the gaming couch.

But it was a small price to pay for living with Sarah.

Even if the painting - modern art - looked a little crooked now, that he really looked at it, instead of at his love.

*****


	4. The High School Reunion Part 1

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 3rd, 2007**

“Hi, Chuck!”

“Good morning, Caridad.” Chuck smiled, though it was a little forced. Seeing Caridad in the Buy More uniform was still a little disconcerting. And not just because it meant that Jeff was still hiding, which in turn meant someone had to fill in for the missing half-demon. And Caridad couldn’t do it since she wasn’t exactly a computer expert. Quite the contrary, actually. “What’s up?” No reason to be rude, of course - she was a friend and meant well.

“Nothing new. Got three bloodsuckers last night, and one Polgara demon. But the poachers didn’t do anything.” She pouted. “Cowards must be hiding!”

Chuck’s smile slipped. “They’re just being smart. They must know they have no chance against you.” Just like following orders didn’t make you a coward - not if the orders made sense. Probably.

Caridad scoffed. “If you’re hunting demons, you’ve got no excuse for hiding from a Slayer!”

Chuck didn’t exactly agree with that - there were many reasons for hiding from Caridad, for example - but he nodded anyway. “I guess so. Well, time to start the daily grind.”

“Have fun. I’ll be guarding the store.” She waved and disappeared between the toaster and mixer aisles while he blinked. She hadn’t tried to flirt with him at all. What did that mean? Had she finally accepted that he wasn’t interested? And what was that about guarding the store? Now that he was thinking about it...

“Hi, Chuck!”

“Morgan!” Chuck nodded. “What’s Caridad actually doing in the store? I don’t remember her appearing on any employee table…”

“Doing?” Morgan looked honestly confused. “She’s guarding the store and looking for the poachers.”

Meaning, she wasn’t doing anything. “On the Buy More payroll.” They were bankrolling the Council.

His friend nodded. “Of course - it’s her cover. Like you and Casey.”

“Morgan, we’re actually doing the work for which we’re getting paid by the store.” Well, mostly. When national security was at stake, you had to set priorities. Spy privileges.

“Really?” Morgan shook his head. “Why are you doing that? Isn’t your spy job more important than managing the store here?”

“Well, yes, but it’s my cover. Which is also very important.”

“Wow, glad I’m going to be a Watcher and not a spy,” Morgan said. “As soon as I’m a full Watcher, I’m quitting here. Can’t really work two full-time jobs, can I?”

“Many people actually have two jobs,” Chuck told him.

“Well, yeah, but how many of them are working jobs where a mistake means people die?” Morgan shook his head again. “No, dude, I’m going to need time to rest and relax, or I’ll burn out. Remember how stressed Buffy and the others were in school?”

“I think that was because of all the fighting they did,” Chuck replied. “And because of Snyder.”

“I think it was because they had no time to relax. And because of Snyder, of course. Well, I’m off to check on Jeff. Can you cover for me for the next half an hour?”

“Uh, sure,” Chuck said, blinking.

“Thanks!”

Chuck frowned as he watched Morgan enter the staff area. What his friend was saying made sense. But would the CIA make such an obvious mistake?

He’d have to ask Sarah. But first, he had to check the schedule for today. Big Mike would get loud if they couldn’t cover all of today’s support jobs.

*****

Alright, if he shuffled the kitchen shifts around and had Casey cover the home entertainment sector in the afternoon, and Morgan fill in at the Nerd Herd desk, Chuck could take that house call at three, which meant...

“Hi, Chuck!”

He didn’t gasp - he was merely startled a little noisily. “Sarah!” He glanced at his watch. “Oh my god! I missed our break! I’m so sorry, but Lester got a cold, and Jeff’s still missing in action, and so we’re down two Nerd Herders, and the Hoover guys are holding a seminar for their latest model today, which means we’re down two more employees…”

“I suspected that,” she said with a smile.

“You did?”

“We’ve got your computer system tapped.”

“Oh.” He frowned, “When did you do that?” And why hadn’t he noticed.

“Bryce did it. Casey found the links.”

“Ah.” Of course. Typical of Bryce. The guy probably hacked the system for Chuck’s own good and deleted some calls. Well… there had been complaints about missed appointments which had never been in the system, now that Chuck thought about it. “I see.”

“So,” she leaned forward on his desk, which really made him appreciate the cut of her uniform top, “let’s take our break now?”

“Alright!” he agreed, quickly logging off - you never left your computer unattended while logged into the system. Even with Jeff and Lester missing.

“Jenny? Jenny Burton? It is you!”

Chuck looked up and saw that Sarah had frozen up while a tanned blonde woman was clasping her hands and beaming at her. “It’s me! Heather Chandler! We went to high school together!”

Jenny Burton? Sarah hadn’t been a spy in high school, had she?

*****

She wasn’t Jenny Burton. She was Sarah Walker. Now. She had never been Jenny Burton. It had just been another fake identity, courtesy of her father, the conman. She was Sarah Walker. And she had to deal with this problem.

Sarah forced herself to smile. “Heather, of course!” she said.

“Well, Heather Ratner now - I married Mark Ratner,” the blonde said. “You remember Mark?”

Sarah did. The class nerd. An outsider like herself had been. Dick Duffy used to stuff Mark into his own locker at least once a week - to the amusement of Heather the cheerleader. Yes, Sarah remembered Mark. And Heather. “I do,” she said.

“He’s an engineer now, you know,” Heather went on. That Sarah hadn’t known. Not that she cared. “And what about you?” The blonde pointedly looked at Sarah’s waitressing uniform.

“I’m the owner-operator of the Wienerlicious,” Sarah said, feeling, once again, the urge to hurt whoever had picked her cover story.

“That’s great! You were such a shy girl in high school!” Heather’s voice dripped with the same fake sincerity that she had used so much on ‘Jenny’. Sarah wanted to hurt her.

“Really?” Chuck blurted out, and Sarah had to suppress the urge to kick his shin.

Heather looked at Chuck as if she saw him for the first time.

“Hi, I’m Chuck.” He smiled at her. “Her boyfriend,” he added, wrapping an arm around Sarah’s shoulder.

“Oh!” Heather smiled again. “You work here?”

“Assistant manager,” Chuck confirmed.

“That’s great!” Heather repeated herself. 

“Yes,” Sarah lied. She had to deal with this potential breach of security - her cover was in danger. Killing Heather, although effective, would be excessive, though. Probably. No matter how cathartic it would be.

“Oh, Mark! Mark! Come! You’ll never guess who I met - Jenny, Jenny Burton!” Heather waved at a tall, thin man walking towards them.

“Hi!”

“You remember her, from high school, right?” Heather didn’t wait for his reply. “And that’s her boyfriend, Chuck.”

“Hi,” Chuck said. He seemed to have - finally - understood that this was a problem.

“We’d love to chat,” Sarah said, “but our break’s over.”

“Oh, we didn’t ruin your break, did we?” Heather pressed a hand to her mouth like she did in school when she faked compassion. “We’ll have to make it up to you! Let’s have dinner together! Our treat!”

Sarah was about to politely - or not so politely if dear old Heather couldn’t take a hint - decline when she noticed that Chuck was blinking. No, flashing.

“Uh… sure, sure,” he said.

She smiled as sweetly as she could. “Of course, it’ll be great,” she lied.

Chuck better had a really good reason for this.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, December 3rd, 2007**

“What were you thinking?” Sarah rounded on him as soon as he entered the base.

“I flashed on the guy - and this was an opportunity to learn more about him,” Chuck defended himself. And it was an opportunity to learn more about Sarah’s past. 

“And if your former classmates are a problem, dinner with them will provide us with opportunities to eliminate them,” Casey added.

“Uh… we wouldn’t actually kill people for knowing about Sarah’s mysterious and confusing past as a teenage spy?” Chuck said, chuckling at his own joke.

The distinct lack of immediate denials and Sarah’s glare weren’t good signs, in Chuck’s opinion.

“We would eliminate them if they’re traitorous scum,” Casey said, dropping a file on the table. “Mark Ratner works at Winthrop-Keller Aerodynamics. He has access to top-secret weapon technology in development.”

“That was fast,” Chuck said. Big Mike’s announcement about his fishing vacation had held up Chuck while Sarah had gone back to the base, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. “How did you…” He blinked and stared at the wall where... “We got a new computer? Oh my God! It’s a DU-97! Freon-cooled! Thirty teraflop architecture! Special modules for cryptographic and facial recognition!”

“Please have your geekgasm where I cannot see it,” Casey drawled. “And don’t break the computer. Don’t hump it, either!”

Chuck was about to educate the barbarian just how great this computer was when the general appeared on the screen. “Agents, Mr Bartowski. Good initiative there - we’ve been tracking leaked future technology, and Mr Ratner is one of the people with access to the sensitive data in question. You will use this opportunity to find out if he’s the leak.”

“What about the threat to my cover?” Sarah asked.

“Your pre-existing social history with the targets provides the perfect cover for this mission. Its results will determine if and which steps we’ll have to take to protect your current cover.”

That sounded ominous, Chuck thought. Very ominous.

But not as ominous as the fact that the general was referring to Sarah’s ‘current cover’.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 3rd, 2007**

If there was one good thing to the whole 'Poacher’ affair, it was the fact that Chuck could leave the Buy More for a briefing without the staff making a mess out of the store in Big Mike’s absence. No one was organising a pallet carrier race in the magazine, there wasn’t a game tournament being held in the home entertainment display room, and no women were standing in line at customer service to complain about remote-controlled cars trying to take upskirt pictures.

In short, the store looked almost ordinary as Chuck and Casey returned. Almost, since Caridad was staring at a couple browsing the aisles of the home appliance section with all the subtle menace of a stalking cougar.

She didn’t even turn when he walked up to her and cleared his throat. “Uh, Caridad?”

“What?”

“What are you doing?”

She sniffed the air. “They smell like demons,” she said.

“The couple?”

“No, the toasters they are comparing.”

If not for her sarcastic tone, Chuck would have seriously considered that. It wouldn’t have been the first case of a demonic possession of a device, after all, and such a thing might explain some of the antics of the staff. Like the break room cage fights over who got the last free snack. “Ah,” he said. “And have they done anything suspicious?”

“They passed a perfectly good toaster that would have fit their professed requirements and was thirty per cent off - much cheaper than the overpriced pieces of crap they are arguing about.” 

It seemed that, although Caridad wasn’t exactly working for the Buy More, she had picked up more than a little of the staff’s knowledge - and attitude. “You, uh, won’t kill them for spending more money than they need, will you? That would run directly counter to the store’s goals, you know.”

That earned him an eye roll. “This might be an act so they have an excuse to spend more time in the store, looking for Jeff. They could be scouts for the poachers!”

“Ah.” It was possible. Theoretically. “Wouldn’t they hang out in the electronics section instead?” Jeff’s uniform, which he often enough wore when going drinking after work, made it clear that he wasn’t working the floor in home appliances.

“That’s what we’d expect,” Caridad retorted. She sniffed the air again. “If they don’t buy something in the next five minutes, I’m going to put the fear of the Slayer into them!”

He hoped that demons and half-demons weren’t responsible for a significant part of the Buy More’s profits, or Big Mike would probably blame Chuck for the loss of revenue in his absence.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 3rd, 2007**

One of the disadvantages of Sarah’s cover were lunch hours. Namely, that Chuck either had to take an early or a late lunch if he wanted to spend it with Sarah since she usually was swamped at noon. But he was getting used to it. Eating a power bar at eleven am also helped with waiting until half past one pm. If he could keep Caridad from raiding his stack.

The way Sarah’s face lit up with a smile when she saw him entering the shop helped more, of course. “Hi, Chuck.”

“Hi, Sarah.” He held up the takeaway boxes. “I got us pad thai.”

She wasn’t smiling as much as usual, though. Almost a little subdued, or so it seemed to him as they sat down after flipping the ‘closed’ sign. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes.”

Which, even he was aware of that, now, meant ‘no’.

“So, how are you managing the store with Big Mike being on vacation?” Sarah asked before he could think of a good way to probe for more information, as Casey would call it.

“Uh, as usual,” he replied. “I’m doing what I am doing anyway. Big Mike usually handles human resources and the franchise, and those can wait for a few days.”

“How’s Caridad doing?”

He frowned. Sarah usually never asked after the Slayer. “She’s scaring away the demon-scented customers.”

She nodded without reacting to his joke. “No news from the poachers, then?”

“No.” This felt like a diversion to him. Time to address the crux of the issue: “Are you concerned about the mission?”

She stared at him. “Heather’s part of a past I left behind,” she said after a few seconds that felt much longer and more uncomfortable than he had expected.

“Ah.” He really wanted to know more about that. “A past named Jenny Burton.” 

He didn’t flinch under her glare. Not really. “An alias,” she said.

Had she really been a teenage spy? Undercover at high school? “Classified?”

“Yes.”

“But Heather and Mark don’t know that,” he pointed out.

“No, they don’t.”

“And you don’t like that they could reveal information about your past. Classified information.”

“I almost hope that they are enemy spies so we can eliminate them,” she said.

This time, he flinched. Her past must be a really touchy subject.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 3rd, 2007**

“Uh, you know, we never really talked about our high school days.” As soon as he had said it, Chuck wanted to wince. That had sounded much better in his head. Smoother, too. 

Sarah turned away from their new armoire and stared - glared - at him. “And now’s the time?”

“Uh… well, kind of?” He smiled and picked up a pair of dress trousers, Charles Carmichael style. “Do you think those are a little overkill? Or just right for an assistant manager at the Buy More dressing up?” At her frown, he added: “Our cover is that we’re trying to impress the cheerleader who married the geek after dating jocks during high school and now thinks she’s better than her old school friends? Or something like that?”

She frowned at him for a moment longer, then sighed. “We were never friends.”

“I, uh, gathered that. I think.” He wet his lips, then ploughed on: “She reminds me of Cordelia. Well, the Cordelia of Sunnydale High School.”

“Your friend who died?”

“She wasn’t my friend in high school. Queen bee - or queen bitch, as Morgan used to call her - of the school. Rich, arrogant, and blunt to the point of rudeness. And past that.” Fortunately, their paths hadn’t crossed often. 

“And popular,” Sarah said.

“Oh, yes. Leader of the cheerleaders. And her family was at the top of the social pecking order.” Chuck nodded. “If she didn’t like you, you were at the bottom of the totem pole. And she didn’t like geeks.”

“Like you and Morgan.” Was that a sympathetic smile on her face?

“Well, we were more collateral damage. She was focusing on Willow, Xander and Jesse most of the time, and on Buffy for a while.” He sat down on the new bed - a very good purchase. “Ellie was three years ahead of us, so she wasn’t a target - she had a thing against smart people. Or people smarter than her.”

“And yet, you became friends after Sunnydale.” Sarah crossed her arms.

Oh. She probably thought he was trying to make her make up with Heather. “Kind of. She changed a lot. Had to change - her parents fled the IRS to South America and left her without a dime. I later heard she had to take a part-time job to buy her prom dress, and she left for Los Angeles after graduation, where she failed at becoming an actress before she got involved with a group of demon hunters and died to a curse or something.” Best not to get into too much detail about Angel and his crew. “She didn’t marry a geek for money.”

Sarah snorted. “Unlike Heather, you mean?”

“Well, I don’t know her, so it could be true love?” He grinned as she snorted again.

But she quickly grew serious once more and sat down next to him on the bed. “I don’t know her well enough to tell.”

“Well, you might, after this evening's dinner.” He smiled encouragingly at her.

“You need to get better at fishing for information without giving the game away. If they are spies, they’ll easily see through you,” she said in a flat voice.

She was closing up again. Damn. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he protested.

“But you want to know why I don’t want to talk about my high school days.”

“Uh… yes. And why you were using a fake name.” Her frown was growing more pronounced, but he kept talking. “I mean - I know I shouldn’t, cover and top secret, and all, and if it’s not even in your Intersect files, it’s probably classified above my clearance, but…” He sighed. “I’m curious and can’t help it. Sorry?” He smiled at her.

She sighed and shook her head, but she was smiling herself. “I wasn’t a teenage spy, Chuck.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “That’s kind of comforting. If the CIA recruited high schoolers, that’d be a reason to worry.” Her expression grew bland, so he added: “You know, that’s where you assure me that our employer wouldn’t recruit teenagers as spies.”

“Chuck, when we were looking into Sunnydale, Casey and I were angry at what we thought was a black op experimenting on teenagers to turn them into supersoldiers or assassins,” she said after a moment.

“But you thought it was possible,” he said before pressing his lips together.

“We wouldn’t have expected such an operation on American soil,” she told him.

“It’s not the fifties any more, after all,” he said. Then he sighed. No need to get into what the US army had gone into during the early part of the Cold War. “Anyway… so, is Jenny Burton your real name?” There. He had done it. Had asked what he really wanted to know.

“No,” she replied without hesitation.

“Oh.” But it was a fake name. A cover. And she hadn’t been a spy, so that left… “Witness protection?”

She actually laughed at that, shaking her head. “My father was a conman, Chuck. I’ve grown up using half a dozen different identities as we moved around, always one step ahead of the law. Until the law caught up-”

Oh. Chuck hadn’t expected that. He opened his mouth to ask for more details but reconsidered just in time.

After a moment, she nodded at him and stood to finish dressing. Which included hiding various weapons on her body. Lethal weapons.

Indeed, restraint was the order of the day, or curiosity might just kill the Chuck.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, December 3rd, 2007**

“Nice restaurant,” Chuck commented as they parked their car - Sarah’s sportscar.

“She picked that out to rub in the fact that she’s rich and we’re - as far as she knows - an IT support guy and a waitress.”

“Shouldn’t that be ‘hostess’ as owner-operator of the Wienerlicious?” Chuck’s grin quickly died in the face of her glare. “Sorry!”

He saw her press her lips together. “Let’s get this over with,” she said and stalked towards the entrance, forcing him to hurry to catch up before they were in sight of the restaurant’s guests.

“They’re seated already,” Sarah whispered as they entered. “Centre of the room.”

He glanced over as the maître d’ welcomed them. Indeed, they were there, watching them.

“Ratner party,” Sarah said.

“Please follow me.”

“Jenny! You made it!” Heather clasped her hands together and beamed at them as if that was a great achievement.

“Hello, Jenny, Charles.” Mark, on the other hand, was much more restrained. Almost subdued.

“Of course we did,” Sarah said with a smile that was as wide as Heather’s. “We wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

“I hope you like our choice of restaurant. You’re working in the business, kind of, right?” Heater leaned forward a little.

“I’m the owner-operator of a speciality hot dog shop,” Sarah replied. “My shop and this restaurant target different segments of the business.”

“Oh, you sound like an expert. It’s a career for you, then?”

“Yes,” Sarah lied. “It’s quite a challenge to manage my own business, but I’m doing well.” She leaned over and wrapped her arm around Chuck’s shoulder. “And I’m working right next to my boyfriend.”

“You certainly wear the uniform very well. Is it your own design?” Without waiting for an answer, Heather went on. “Who would have thought our Jenny Burton from school would ever wear such clothes to work, right, Mark?”

“Uh, yes.” Mark nodded, studying the wine selection that Casey, posing as a waiter, had brought to the table.

Chuck tried not to wince as Sarah’s fingers dug a little too hard into his shoulder at the barb against Wienerlicious’s uniforms. “Jenny looks good whatever she wears,” he said with a forced smile. “Watch the Vulcan death grip!” he added under his breath, then managed not to sigh with relief when her grip relaxed.

“How nice of you to say!” Heather gushed. “How long have you been together?”

“Months,” Sarah replied. “We met a few days before the opening of my shop.”

“Oh, yes. I still remember the day she walked into the store,” Chuck added. “Her phone had a malfunction - easily fixed - and that’s how we met.” He patted her hand on his shoulder and didn’t have to fake his smile.

“Ah, yes - Jenny was always a little challenged by high tech,” Heather commented. “It’s good she’s found a boyfriend who can help her out with that, right?”

And the Vulcan death grip was back.

*****

“...and then Jenny stumbled into Marcy, dropping the whole pot. Paint went everywhere!” Heather laughed loudly at her own story.

Chuck laughed politely. It was actually a funny story, but he had no intention to risk Sarah’s ire - her smile was showing enough teeth to make some demon species envious. He cleared his throat. “So, Mark, what do you do?” he said before Heather could launch into another ‘Jenny Burton’s spazzing days at high school’ story.

Mark looked a little startled at the question. “Ah, I’m an engineer. I’m working at… well, it’s actually top secret.” And the man’s smile, Chuck noticed, looked not really genuine. Although that could be because of his wife’s thinly-veiled exchange of barbs with Sarah.

“Mark, no is interested in boring engineer tales.”

Or it was because of his wife, period.

“So… do you ever go back to San Diego, Jenny? Visit your dad?”

Her father was in San Diego?

“He was released years ago,” Sarah replied. “I don’t have any contact with him. Haven’t since high school.”

Heather frowned for a moment, then turned to Chuck. “Do you know about her dad? Such a scandal back then! It was the talk of the school for weeks, right?!” 

“Of course I know,” Chuck said. “And I also know that it’s in the past, and that we don’t like to talk about it.” He bared his teeth, a little, as he smiled. “So, Mark, you married your teenage sweetheart? The cheerleader and the future engineer?”

“Oh, no,” Sarah cut in with a wide smile of her own. “In high school, Heather was always with the jocks. Didn’t you date Dick Duffy?” She turned to Chuck. “He was always bullying the geeks, like Mark. Swirlies, wedgies, and lockers, you know.”

“Ah, one of those,” Chuck nodded and Chuck not to smile when Heather pressed her lips together.

“Oh, come on, Mark - that was ages ago!” Heather snapped. “You aren’t having a flashback, are you? It was just some harmless teasing.”

Mark was actually rather pale, Chuck noticed. And sweating - but certainly not because of school bullying, so… He turned his head to see what Mark was staring at and spotted two burly men at the bar in the foyer.

And he flashed.

Sergei Ivanov, former member of the KGB, went ‘private’ as an enforcer for the Russian Mob after 1991. Wanted for murder, extortion, kidnapping and smuggling. And, apparently, now involved in industrial or normal espionage.

Peter Karpov - no relation to the chess player - career mobster, spent more than half his life in various prisons. Suspected of several counts of murder, but there had never been enough proof to overcome his protection by certain high-ranking officials.

Chuck blinked. And Mark was afraid of them, which meant that he knew them. They were letting themselves be seen, which meant that they were here to put pressure on Mark, but they wouldn’t go further. For now.

Which meant that something could be done about them. He pulled out his phone. “Sorry… my sister needs to know where the gas for the lawnmower is stored - we share the same yard, and she’s a doctor, so she works odd hours,” he told the rest at the table as he texted Casey with the two men’s descriptions and summarised backgrounds.

“Your sister’s a doctor?” Heather asked in what sounded honest surprise.

“Oh, yes, Ellie’s great. She practically raised me for a few years after our parents went missing,” Chuck said. ‘Missing’ had a slightly more permanent meaning in Sunnydale, of course, not that the Ratners would know that.

“Ah.” The woman nodded. “Absent parents - something that you have in common,” she added with fake sympathy.

Was she implying that his parents were crooks as well? Chuck clamped down on his anger and shrugged. “Well, they are officially missing, but we used to live in Sunnydale…”

“Oh.” It seemed Heather wasn’t a complete bitch - the insinuation that the Bartowskis had died when Sunnydale had disappeared into a sinkhole didn’t leave her untouched. “You survived that?”

He nodded. “We were lucky.” Lucky to get out of the town after graduation. “Not all of my class were as lucky, though.” He sighed, a little too loudly, but it effectively killed that topic. “So, Mark, you work in San Diego?”

“Ah, yes, at Winthrop-Keller Aerodynamics,” Mark relied, though his attention was still focused on the two drinking Russians.

“Mark!” Heather cut in. “Don’t space out!” She turned to Chuck. “He’s got a tendency to do that. A little like Jenny used to - she was such a spaz in high school!”

Chuck readjusted his impression of the woman’s character downwards again. Even Cordelia at her worst would have showed more tact and certainly more subtlety. “Really?” He made an effort to sound very surprised. “She’s one of the most focused women I know - and most of Ellie’s friends are doctors, so the baseline’s pretty high. One of the most graceful women, too,” he added.

“Thank you, Chuck,” Sarah said. There was a little tension in her voice - and in the hand she put on his - though. 

Oh. Of course! The most focused and graceful women he knew were Slayers, and she would have realised that. “And, of course, the most beautiful,” he said.

“Oh, how romantic!” So Heather could also do subtle - the sneering sarcasm was understated, but still rather clearly audible in her voice. “Did you hear that, Mark? Mark?”

“Ah, uh, yes?”

“Mark!” Heather snapped. “What’s wrong with you? They will think you’re being rude! And you’re sweating like a pig! Are you getting sick?”

Irony, though, Heather apparently wouldn’t recognise if it hit her in the face with slayer strength, Chuck concluded.

"Ah, sorry - I’m a little distracted. Work, you know,” Mark lied rather unconvincingly.

“He’s always working!” Heather said. “We came up here from San Diego to relax, and he’s still thinking about work!”

Mark’s eyes were still focused more on the Russians than on his wife, Chuck noticed. “Ah… please excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom,” the man said suddenly, getting up and all but fleeing from the table - which would have been an understandable reaction to the scorn heaped upon his head by Heather, if not for the two Russians following him.

Chuck would have followed them, but Casey was already moving.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, December 3rd, 2007**

“...and after I took out the two goons threatening Ratner, he spilled. They’ve been threatening to hurt his wife to force him to turn traitor, and they’ve increased the pressure lately to get the information about the Raptor II project,” Casey said with a snarl. Apparently, he thought that Mark should have sacrificed Heather instead. Well, after an evening spent in the woman’s company, Chuck couldn’t entirely condemn the idea.

Judging by her scoffing, Sarah shared Casey’s views. Perfectly understandable, if a little disturbing anyway.

“Good work, Agent Casey,” the general said. “In light of this information, we’ll wait until the Russians’ superiors contact Ratner again, then arrange a meeting and use the opportunity to feed them fake information.”

Ah. A classic ploy, or so Chuck understood. “So, mission accomplished?” He smiled.

The general frowned. “Not exactly. There’s the risk that whoever is behind this will escalate and kidnap Mrs Ratner. We’re arranging a protection detail, but for the duration of their stay in Los Angeles, you’ll have to guard them.”

"Understood, General,” Casey snapped as Chuck glanced at Sarah. Her expression was composed, but he knew she would loathe this. He wasn’t exactly a fan of it, either.

But not even Heather deserved to get kidnapped by the Russian mob.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Hollywood, December 4th, 2007**

“I thought those stakeouts would be more fun,” Chuck commented, lowering his binoculars for a moment and taking a sip from his Mountain Dew bottle. The Ratners were staying in this evening, or so it seemed - Mark was playing the ‘I’m not feeling well, maybe I’m coming down with something’ card, as Casey had instructed him.

“We’re not on a stakeout,” Sarah corrected him. “We’re bodyguarding.”

“And using the Ratners as bait,” Chuck said, “like a staked-out goat to attract the tiger. Or the bears, in this case.” They weren’t in a car, either, but in a hotel room facing the Ratner’s hotel.

She snorted at that but didn’t say anything in response. 

He suppressed a sigh. Sarah didn’t mind using Heather as bait. Mark, perhaps, but not her nemesis from school. And she didn’t resent protecting the woman, either. So that left… “It’s a little funny that the only one who doesn't know about the spy business is Heather.”

“Mark doesn’t know that we’re spies, either,” Sarah said.

“Right. But Heather is completely ignorant of the danger. Even though she’s in the middle of it.”

“She always wanted to be the centre of attention; she probably would be happy if she knew,” Sarah not-quite-spat.

Chuck laughed at that, but Sarah apparently didn’t think it was funny - she was frowning. “I’m just trying to see the humour in this situation,” he said.

“There’s nothing funny about this.”

He bit his lower lip, pondering what to say. “Well, at least Heather has exhausted her Jenny Burton stories before our second dinner with them.” Which apparently was scheduled for ‘sometime next century’ according to Sarah.

Sarah scoffed at that but, once again, didn’t comment verbally.

“What’s wrong?” he finally asked after another moment of silence. “This doesn’t seem like you, to be so… stuck on this.” On her.

“It’s a part of my past that I loathe,” she said.

“Being a teenager?” he joked before he could stop himself.

Her frown turned into a glare. A cold glare. “No. Losing my father.”

Oh. His first impulse was to tell her that, at least, her father was still alive. Unlike his. He managed to avoid that by pressing his lips together. “Sorry,” he said instead.

Sarah sighed and leaned back in her seat. “I should be sorry. You lost your parents to…”

“To Sunnydale,” he cut in.

“To Sunnydale,” she went on, “while I lost my father to his own stupidity and greed.”

Going out at night in Sunnydale was very stupid as well, but Chuck wouldn't mention that. His parents hadn’t known the truth. Not really.

*****

Sarah wanted to hit something. It wasn’t fair. Chuck had lost his parents, she had been saddled with a crook as a father who had ended up in prison when she needed him. Both of them had to rebuild their lives through no fault of their own, and Heather the cheerleading bitch had the time of her life in high school, then turned and married the class geek who was going to become rich. The same guy who had been the target of her snide remarks, and her friends’, for three years not only forgave her but married her. And was willing to commit treason to keep her safe. And in exchange, she treated him like dirt.

Consequences apparently were a thing that happened to other people, not to Heather.

She took a few deep breaths. She was a trained spy. She knew better. She wouldn’t lose her temper. Not over Heather. She hadn’t lost her temper last night despite the woman’s constant needling and attempts to put her down, and she wouldn’t lose it now.

There was no reason to be jealous either. Heather might have married rich, but Sarah - not Jenny any more, never Jenny to begin with - had a career. And a wonderful if sometimes a little clueless boyfriend. Granted, her career was doomed due to circumstances outside her control, but she might be able to weather that.

Just as she would weather Heather. She sighed. “I’m being unreasonable, I know. We’re not in high school any more.” They weren’t the people they had been as teenagers any more. Well, with the possible exception of Heather. The bitch hadn’t changed as far as Sarah could tell.

“And with the possible exception of people like Heather, we’re all glad about that,” Chuck replied. “That we’re not in high school any more, I mean. Not about you being unreasonable. Which, incidentally, I don’t think you are.”

She smiled at him. He was trying. And it was working.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 5th, 2007**

“Where is Casey? Why isn’t he working already?”

“Good morning, Lester. I’m doing well, thank you for asking. How are you?” Chuck forced himself to smile at the Nerd Herder. He had been up too long, observing the Ratners, and lack of sleep made everyone cranky. Well, some it made loopy, but Chuck wasn’t among them.

“Yes, yes, good morning, howdy and whatever.” Lester shook his head. “Focus, Chuck! Where’s Casey?”

“He’s sick,” Chuck lied. Casey was observing the Ratners today. “Why do you care? Last I heard - from you, actually - you two had some ‘differences’.” Which was a polite way to say that Casey didn’t tolerate the antics of Jeff and Lester, and was quite willing to demonstrate that physically.

“Yes, we had some differences of opinions. But,” Lester spoke up, “of all the employees of this fine store, Casey is by far the most dangerous. And one of the most primitives as well. But it is this combination of thuggish violence and animal cunning that makes him the perfect security for the store. Have you seen what he does to shoplifters?”

“You mean you want him to guard you and Jeff,” Chuck corrected him.

“We’re valuable Buy More employees. Who would be able to satisfy all the most discerning - and rich - Mac users without us?”

“I could do it myself,” Chuck replied at once, “or I could ask Morgan to help.”

Lester gaped at him, blinked, then said: “But you wouldn’t be able to do your work, then!”

“I think I’ll manage,” Chuck said. “It’s not as if Jeff’s been around lately, is it?”

“He has to hide from the demon hunters!”

“We’ve got Caridad here. He could be working here and be perfectly safe,” Chuck pointed out. 

“She’s the Slayer! She’s one bad day from flipping out and killing everyone!” Lester retorted. 

“You’ve been listening to Jeff and his very biased view of Slayers,” Chuck replied. “Caridad is a perfectly nice girl, and there’s no reason to…”

The sound of toppling aisles interrupted him. Whirling around, he saw Caridad, a snarl on her face, charging at a man she had just thrown through the Tupperware display.

Chuck shook his head. He really should have known better.

*****


	5. The High School Reunion Part 2

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 5th, 2007**

“Caridad!” Chuck yelled. “What are you…”

“It’s one of them!” Caridad yelled a fraction of a second before she ploughed into a small sea of plastic containers, scattering them in her wake. Her foot found her target, though, and another aisle was wrecked stopping a human projectile.

A demon projectile, Chuck corrected himself a moment later as he saw Caridad’s opponent getting up - no human would have survived such a blow. Or would hiss like a snake and charge Caridad.

But they were in the middle of the Buy More in the morning, not in a parking lot or graveyard after dark. There were too many civilians present. Chuck needed to…

“Attention all shoppers. We’re conducting a fire drill. Please leave the Buy More store and wait in the parking lot for further instructions. Thank you.”

That was Morgan. Quick thinking - but Chuck knew that some shoppers wouldn’t listen. Not even a real fire would drive some bargain-hunters out of the store. Fortunately, the customers near Caridad and the demon weren’t among those - they were quickly retreating.

And another aisle - dishes and plates, Chuck noticed with a wince - was shattered, this time by breaking Caridad’s fall. A strong demon, then. He looked around. Most people had left. A few were watching, though. And Morgan was emerging from the staff area, carrying…

Oh, hell! He had a crossbow. And an antique, not one from the Buy More’s sports section. Chuck sprinted towards the remaining gawkers. “What are you doing here? Haven’t you heard the fire drill announcement.”

One of them, a teenager - no surprise there - sneered at him. “So?”

Casey would have beaten the idiot up just to teach him a lesson. Chuck wasn’t Casey. He pointed at Caridad, who was straddling her opponent and raining down blows on its head. “The gentleman there refused to leave the store when she told him to.”

“So?” The boy’s sneer didn’t waver, even as the smarter people around them picked up the implication of Chuck’s words and started to leave.

Teens… Chuck shook his head. “If you don’t leave, she’ll make you leave as soon as she’s finished with this guy.”

That, at least, sent the idiot boy running. And just in time - Morgan was already aiming his crossbow from behind the closest desk. 

And when the demon threw off Caridad, Morgan took his shot, nailing the monster in the head. That would have been hard to explain as a Buy More policy.

Unfortunately, the demon ignored the bolt sticking out of its head and roared, attacking Caridad again. He didn’t hit her, though - she evaded his wild blows, landing hits of her own instead. Had she taken his measure, as Phil called it?

Chuck reached Morgan. “What demon is this?”

“I don’t know. The bolt didn’t have any effect, so it’s not vulnerable to wood, silver or cold iron,” Morgan replied.

“It’s not plastic, either,” Chuck added, pointing at the scattered wares on the ground.

Morgan didn’t laugh at the feeble joke. “And Caridad’s blows don’t seem to faze it, either.”

That meant decapitation was next. But Caridad didn’t seem to have a suitable weapon.

Until she hit the demon into the cooking knives display. And proceeded to disarm the stunned demon with the biggest knife on sale. Literally disarm.

The demon neither relented nor tried to flee, though - it fought on. Caridad cut off its head next - and not even that stopped it. What kind of monster could survive that? Well, there was one demon species… No, Caridad had just stabbed the demon’s left butt cheek, where the particular demon species of whom Chuck was thinking hid its brain, and that didn’t stop it either.

Screaming, the Slayer started to cut the demon apart piece by piece. It was a… it was actually a very bloodless spectacle, Chuck realised.

Finally, the demon’s remains collapsed, and Caridad held up an egg-like structure speared on her borrowed knife. “Got it!” she announced!

“What the hell is going on here? Why are our customers waiting outside instead of spending money inside?”

Apparently, Big Mike had cut his vacation short.

“Big Mike!” Chuck smiled at him. “I noticed that we hadn’t yet run the mandatory fire drill and decided to do it today, rather than later when the holiday shopping frenzy peaks.”

Big Mike blinked. “Oh, ah, yes. That explains the crowd filling the parking lot.” He nodded but kept frowning. “It doesn’t explain, though, what happened here! Why is half the store wrecked? Grimes! You didn’t run your hare-brained Mario Kart promotion stunt again in my absence, did you?”

Morgan shook his head. “No, no… this wasn’t my fault, Big Mike!”

“One of the customers didn’t want to leave and got violent when asked to leave,” Caridad spoke up. “I had to subdue him.” 

The burly man rounded on her. “You caused all of this?” He waved his arm to cover the half a dozen wrecked aisles.

“No, the guy…” Caridad started, but Big Mike shook his head.

“Who are you, anyway?”

“Ah, she’s a temp,” Morgan said. “We were short a few people due to sick days.”

“A temp?” Big Mike glared at the Slayer. “No, you know what you are? You’re fired!”

“What?” Caridad stared at him.

“Are you deaf? You’re fired! Get out of my store!” Big Mike waved his hands in front of Caridad’s face. “Shoo! Get lost before you wreck the rest of the store! I can’t use an employee who doesn’t know that the customer is king!”

Chuck saw that Caridad was snarling and quickly stepped between her and Big Mike. “Alright, Miss, you heard the man - let’s not make a scene, shall we?” He beamed his best smile at her.

She growled with bared teeth, and, for a moment, Chuck feared that she might push him aside and beat up Big Mike, but Morgan joined him. “Yes, yes - violence isn’t an option here.”

“I’m getting violent if you don’t leave at once!” Big Mike butted in.

“And we really don’t want that!” Chuck said with a strained smile. “So how about we go outside? Morgan, please escort her out!”

He ignored the betrayed look from his friend - Morgan had hired Caridad, so this was his fault, at least in part - and turned to Big Mike. “If you’re here, there are a few things to deal with, Big Mike. Can we go to your office and discuss them?”

“I’ll show him violence!”

“No, you can’t.”

“Yes, I can!”

“I’m telling Phil!”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Yes, I would!”

Chuck tried to ignore the exchange behind him and all but pushed Big Mike towards the staff area. “So, you see, we’ve had trouble with staffing...”

“Indeed, I see the problem. Quite clearly!”

“I’ll show you a problem!”

“No, no, don’t!” 

Morgan sounded desperate, Chuck noticed. But he was busy enough dealing with Big Mike before the man committed suicide by Slayer. At least they were almost at the staff area.

“And get the uniform off her before you throw her out! That’s Buy More property!” Big Mike yelled before Chuck managed to close the door behind them.

Since the door wasn’t broken down by an enraged Slayer a second later, Morgan must have managed to calm Caridad down.

If that wasn’t proof that he was cut out to be a Watcher, then Chuck didn’t know what would be.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 5th, 2007**

“...and then I had to keep him from firing Jeff for extended absences.” Chuck shook his head as he told Sarah what had happened in the morning.

“That’s why you missed our break,” she said, putting down a container with chop suey in front of him, “and had me fetch lunch.” Not that she had minded - Chuck had sounded quite stressed when he had called her at noon.

“Sorry.” He smiled at her.

“Why didn’t you let him fire Jeff?” It wouldn’t be a big loss, in her opinion.

“It wouldn’t be fair - Jeff’s in this bind because of us.” He dug into his meal. “Mhh.”

“The demon hunters weren’t our fault. Nor were they Caridad’s,” she pointed out.

“But they’re using him as bait.”

She shrugged, taking a bite from her own red curry. “They didn’t spread news of his presence - Jeff did that himself.”

“Still, he’s a co-worker. And it’s going to be harder to protect him with Caridad banned from the Buy More.” Chuck sighed.

“I thought she was fired.”

“She was banned after Big Mike saw how many goods were destroyed in the fighting,” Chuck explained.

“Ah.” Well, the Slayer had a talent for collateral damage that probably made Casey jealous.

“And if she loiters outside the store, he might sic the cops on her,” Chuck went on. “When do we need to relieve Casey?”

“I’ve closed the shop for the afternoon. I’ll relieve him after our lunch break. You can join me once your shift ends,” she told him. “We can eat dinner there. This time, you’ll get it.”

“Alright.” He blinked. “I just had an idea. It’s not really ideal if the shop’s closed, is it? Someone might notice your absences.”

He couldn’t be suggesting what she thought he was suggesting. “No.”

“But it would solve a couple of problems.” He was beaming at her with that slightly embarrassed smile of his.

“No. Absolutely not.” She shook her head.

“She’s already in the know, isn’t she? It wouldn’t endanger the mission. Just for a week or two, until they can catch the demon hunters. And we really need her if another demon attacks the store.”

That was a good argument. Any demon a Slayer had trouble killing would go right through Sarah and Casey, and they had to protect Chuck.

But the general would have a fit.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 6th, 2007**

“Welcome to Wienerlicious! Chuck!”

“Hi, Chuck.”

Caridad’s greeting sounded a little too enthusiastic in Chuck’s opinion. And Sarah’s greeting was polite. Barely - his girlfriend was frowning at him behind Caridad’s back, apparently showing the Slayer how to use the grill.

“How may I serve you?” Caridad went on, leaning forward. She was wearing the skimpy uniform of the store quite well, Chuck couldn’t keep from noticing - it certainly showed far more cleavage and more of her legs than the Buy More shirt and pants.

“I’ll handle that customer,” Sarah said with a toothy smile. “The usual, Chuck?”

“Uh, yes, of course,” he replied. 

Perhaps his idea hadn’t been quite as good as he had thought.

He took his usual seat. The store was empty - not unusual at this time of the day; that was why he took his break now, after all.

Caridad hopped on the counter, crossing her legs, and beamed at him. “This is perfect! I can sense all demons headed towards the Buy More from here, and the fat idiot can’t say anything about it!” She hefted a hot dog overloaded with condiments and took a hefty bite out of it. “And I can get all the food I want for free!”

Sarah’s frown intensified.

“Uh, that’s great,” Chuck said. It wasn’t as if the store needed to make a profit, was it? It was a CIA front, not a real business, after all. And unless someone were taking count of how much Caridad ate, the increased consumption of cheap sausages and buns would only enhance the cover story. 

At least Chuck hoped that would be the case.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Sarah said, taking a seat across from Chuck. “It’s only temporary.”

“Aw.” Caridad pouted and swallowed the rest of the hot dog. “We could make it permanent! I could use the money, and you could use a trustworthy and skilled employee!”

“Don’t you get paid by the Council?” Sarah asked.

“Well, yes. But with the free food I’m getting here, I can use the stipend for clothes and weapons!”

“I don’t think Phil would like you dropping your courier job,” Chuck pointed out. “That allows you to travel the city without drawing attention.” Why was Sarah still frowning at him? He was trying to heed off Caridad’s idea, wasn’t he?

“I deliver hot dogs,” Caridad replied, grabbing a soda from the fridge. Chuck was pointedly not watching her bend over.

“We don’t do deliveries,” Sarah said in a tone that told Chuck she was annoyed.

“Others might not know it,” Caridad retorted. “Most demons won’t check if you actually deliver.” She grinned in a rather feral manner. “They’ll think I’m the delivery.” She ran her hands down her front to emphasise her point.

Chuck coughed. “Well, we should focus on catching the demon hunters, shouldn’t we? And on yesterday’s demon attack.”

“Morgan brought the remaining demon parts to Phil for analysis,” Caridad said. “The stuff that didn’t break down and dissolved into slime, at least.”

“Ah, yes.” That had been a mess. Chuck had assigned Lester to that task - the man knew about demons and hadn’t been needed elsewhere. And it would hopefully teach him not to annoy Chuck overly much. 

And pigs would learn to fly.

“So, all we can do right now is wait until the poachers or the demons try again,” Caridad said, sitting on the counter and letting her feet dangle.

“Uh, yes,” Chuck replied, realising a drawback of his idea: Caridad would be present during his and Sarah’s usual morning break. No wonder Sarah was so annoyed. He tried to smile apologetically at her.

“Oh, Chuck, we need to buy more sheets,” she said.

“Sheets?”

“Yes. For our new bed - we’ll be needing them, won’t we, the way things have been going?”

Apparently, Caridad’s presence wouldn’t stop Sarah from talking about rather intimate topics during their break. And the Slayer was scowling - and growling under her breath, Chuck thought.

Yes, this really hadn’t been a good idea.

And that was why Chuck could have hugged Phil when the Watcher arrived ‘bearing important news’.

*****

“I’ve analysed the samples you sent me,” Phil said a few minutes later, after Morgan had arrived as well, pulling thick sheets of paper out of his old, battered leather suitcase. “It was quite peculiar, and without Miss Rosenberg’s latest treatise on alchemy, I wouldn’t have realised what we’re facing. It was really eye-opening, the way she combined chemistry, biology and magic.”

Chuck resisted the urge to clear his throat and mutter ‘get to the point’ under his breath.

Morgan, apparently, didn’t. “That’s nice, but what does it mean for us?” he asked.

Phil frowned, sighing. “The ‘demon’ Caridad fought was actually a construct - a magically animated slime golem.”

“A slime golem? Shouldn’t they be all-slimy, like slime demons?” Caridad asked.

“Not if they use the... Oh my God!” Chuck blurted out, sharing a horrified look with Morgan.

“We’re facing magical T-1000s!” Chuck’s friend yelled. “That’s what they hunt slime demons for!”

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Hollywood, December 6th, 2007**

Casey was looking angry and ready to hurt someone when Sarah and Chuck arrived at the hotel to relieve him. In other words, situation normal.

“About time you got here,” he grunted as he packed up his gear. “No change in status for the Ratners. Try not to shoot the woman, Walker.”

Chuck saw Sarah rolling her eyes at the dig and frowned. She was a trained spy - she was above such petty things. Well, not that shooting someone was petty. Unless it was with a nerf gun or such. He cleared his throat. “Oh, we’ve got an update for the Buy More situation. We’re dealing with magical T-1000s.”

“What?”

“The slime demon hunters? Apparently, they found a way to use the blood to produce magical constructs that can take human shape. Based on slime. Like the liquid metal Terminator in Terminator 2. The killer robot that could change shape.”

“I’ve seen the movie,” Casey snapped. “How do you kill them?”

“Well, apart from letting Caridad hack them into tiny pieces, we don’t know yet,” Chuck admitted. “But at least they can’t change shape as easily as the Terminator could.” The fight would have gone much differently if they could change their limbs into melee weapons in seconds.

“How comforting.” 

Casey really had to work on his people skills. “Well, knowing is half the battle, right?” Chuck said.

“If you quote G.I. Joe at me again, I’ll feed you your Commander Cobra action figure.”

Chuck was certain that those had been Casey’s favourite toys - the man looked at Jane’s publications like Jeff and Lester looked at the Playboy centrefold - but the agent also looked very annoyed and tired after his shift. Discretion was the better part of valour here.

“Boys…” Sarah was rolling her eyes again.

“Sorry,” Chuck said.

Casey just grunted and left.

Chuck waited five minutes to be safe before commenting: “He was rather grumpy. Violence withdrawal?”

Sarah rolled her eyes once more. She really was on a roll there. He pouted - that hadn’t been a bad joke. Well, not too bad. “I’m just saying that he seems angrier than usual.”

“Whoever is behind the Russians should have made contact with Mark already,” Sarah said. “They haven’t, which means they must be up to something else.”

“Ah.” Chuck blinked. “So, was that an explanation why Casey’s so grumpy, or a not so subtle reminder to focus on our mission?”

She grinned at that. “Yes.”

He smiled in return and decided to save his apology for getting Caridad hired at the Wienerlicious for later.

*****

“One number five and one number three, please,” Chuck said, pointing at the pictures above the counter.

“Right away, sir!” the girl behind the counter told him before calling out the order in Thai to the cooks behind her. “What beverages would you like with that?”

“One regular coke and a diet coke.”

“The usual, then,” she replied with a smile.

One thing this mission had going for it - though it wasn’t enough to outweigh the boredom or the awkward hours; Ellie was already wondering what they were doing going out every evening - was the fact that the hotel was next to one of the best Thai takeaways in Los Angeles. Although Chuck wasn’t quite sure if the store’s staff recognising him and his orders was a good thing or a threat. It would be pretty embarrassing if the mission failed because of his taste for Red Thai Curry.

Perhaps he should ask Sarah to fetch dinner tomorrow… no. That would look lazy.

And he liked getting out of the hotel and stretching his legs a little. And people watching was always entertaining in Hollywood. He watched a white stretch limousine stopping in front of the Ratner’s hotel and wondered who would get out. A bunch of rich kids spending daddy’s money? A rapper and his entourage? A singer cruising for some groupies?

A young woman got out of the car in a far too short dress and wearing far too large sunglasses. In the evening. Daddy’s girl, he decided - she had the look. And the accessoires. That Gucci handbag, for example, or the… She turned, pushing up her sunglasses, and he saw her face.

And flashed.

Natalia Petranova. Russian spy, suspected involvement in several assassinations of political enemies of the current president. He had to inform Sarah! But he also had ordered dinner - and if he left without waiting for his order, he’d draw attention and probably endanger his cover. No, not probably - certainly. If the waitress yelled or even ran after him, any trained spy would take notice. And Natalia would have backup. The driver, at least. Who, Chuck realised, could be anywhere by now - he hadn’t paid attention to the limousine.

No, he had to stay and wait, waste valuable time while watching rice getting cooked and meat getting fried and…

“Sir? Your order is ready.”

He blinked. “Ah, thank you. I’m sorry, I was lost in thoughts.”

He ignored the indulgent smile of the woman and grabbed the bag with the takeaway, then not quite ran back into their hotel.

“Sarah, Sarah!” he yelled as soon as he entered the room - after an agonising trip in the lift that took far longer than it should have thanks to a handful of tourists who must have been spread out over every floor.

“What?”

“A Russian spy just entered the hotel! Natalia Petranova!” he blurted out. “She was in that white stretch limousine!”

Sarah turned around. “Heather and Mark are still in their room.”

“They wouldn’t break into a hotel room, would they? The Russians, I mean.”

She shook her head, her attention still on the room in the building across the street. “No. But they might attempt something later, during the night. We need to know which room she took.”

He nodded. “And how do we do that?”

Sarah turned back. “That’s where you come in, Chuck.”

*****

“As I’ve told you, sir, I’m Chuck Bartowski, from Nerd Herd. I’ve been sent here in response to a call for tech support for your hotel.”

The clerk frowned at Chuck, then at his screen. “There’s nothing in the system about a tech support call. Not even a notice about any problems.”

“That would be the problem, sir,” Chuck lied. “Apparently, some entries never make into the system, and your staff couldn’t find the problem.”

“But who called you?”

“I didn’t take the call, sir. I’m tech support, not call centre.”

“We can’t just have someone work on our system without knowing who’s responsible.” The man - E. Smith according to his name tag - shook his head.

“Well, sir, someone made the call. Nerd Herd isn’t in the habit to show up without being called. We’re already short an employee this week and had to work overtime to keep our backlog from growing out of control. So, how about this: You find out who made the call while I get to work so neither of us will waste any more time?” Chuck gave the man his best smile. The one that had once convinced Big Mike that he couldn’t fire Jeff and Lester for accidentally feeding his sandwich to a stray dog.

Smith sighed, but he glanced at his co-worker, who was dealing with one new guest while two more were waiting in line. “Alright. Do you know where the server is?”

“Straight back, then left?” Chuck guessed.

“Right, it’s right, not left.”

“Gotcha!” Chuck nodded, picked up his bag and walked towards the door to the staff area. Morgan would cover for him on the Nerd Herd end, and the CIA’s tools had made faking a call from the reception desk easy.

Straight, then right. The door was even labelled ‘server room’. Not that the computer Chuck found inside deserved such a lofty name. There were laptops with more processing power in the Buy More’s bargain bins.

He shook his head - people never learned. Saving money on hardware cost you more in the end.

And it would mean his search through the scanned passports of the recently arrived guests would take a little longer than planned.

Not too long, though - there hadn’t been that many people checking in.

Five pictures and five minutes - the machine was really slow, and whoever had programmed the database deserved to spend a day as a training dummy with Caridad - later, he knew Petranova’s fake identity: She was staying in the presidential suite as ‘Elena Kameneva’.

Mission accomplished! he thought with a smile as he packed up. Like a real spy!

*****

By the time Chuck returned to their room, Casey had returned, looking none the worse for wear despite having had his sleep interrupted after an already long shift. He looked downright eager, actually, as he set up a sniper position using the bed as a base.

That explained the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door, at least. “Hi, Casey!” Chuck greeted him, albeit a little belatedly. “I found out where Petranova’s staying: It's the presidential suite. I guess posing as some oligarch’s daughter is convenient, huh?”

Casey just looked at him, then looked away, somehow conveying a lot of scorn in that gaze, but Sarah nodded. “Good work, Chuck. Now we need to bug the suite, and keep an eye on Heather and Mark.”

“Do you really think they’ll try to break into the Ratners’ room?” Chuck asked.

“I hope they’ll do,” Casey replied, grinning widely and patting his rifle. “I can blow their heads off from here without getting up.”

“Isn’t that kind of implied when sniping?” Chuck asked. “You usually do it lying down, right?”

Casey frowned - and growled - at him, but Sarah chuckled.

It would still be a long night. 

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Hollywood, December 7th, 2007**

“Wake up! Heather’s leaving the room!”

“Huh?” Chuck blinked as he sat up - he had just been resting a little on the bed, really.

“The gold digger’s leaving their hotel room, Bartowski.” Casey, of course, was already awake and behind his rifle, even though he had been actually sleeping. “Get with the program.”

“She’s going out? At…” Chuck checked the time. “...three in the morning?”

“Yes.” Sarah bared her teeth. “Quite suspicious, isn’t it?”

“Midnight craving for a snack?” Chuck asked.

“There’s room service and a minibar for that,” Sarah replied. “And most stores are closed now.”

And Heather and Mark had eaten a late dinner in the hotel’s restaurant - at the same time as Petranova, actually.

“More like a craving for some adultery - or treason,” Casey said. “Let’s go!”

“Where?” Chuck scrambled for his bag. Casey had already dismantled his sniper setup.

“To track Heather, of course.”

They reached the ground floor in time to spot Heather hailing a cab on the other side of the street - Chuck ran into Casey’s back when the other man suddenly stopped.

“Watch it, Bartowski, we can’t be seen.”

“A cab? Wouldn’t that leave a witness?” Chuck could think of several ways to track a cab or reconstruct a route.

“Yes. And she looked scared,” Sarah said as they hurried to their car.

“Could be acting,” Casey added.

“She was always good at faking tears,” Sarah pointed out.

*****

Sarah had to break a few minor traffic rules, but she quickly caught up to the cab - the car they had taken for the mission might not look it, but it had a tuned engine and could give some of the cheaper sports cars a run for their money. Her high school nemesis wouldn’t get away.

She blinked. Perhaps she had watched too many of Chuck’s favourite movies. Heather was a suspect and a bitch, not her nemesis. Sarah wasn’t in high school any more.

Pressing her lips together, she let a stretch limousine slip between her and the cab. If Heather was a spy, she would be looking for tails. And without a second car, they couldn’t do this properly. 

Fortunately, they had alternatives. “Chuck?”

“Almost!” Her boyfriend replied from the back bench. “I’m inside the cab firm’s system… just searching the cab’s plates… there! Yes, it got a GPS!”

Sarah smiled as she took the next turn, letting the cab drive on. “Good work, Chuck. Keep tracking it.”

“On it!”

He really was good with computers.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, North Hollywood, December 7th, 2007**

Sarah had to drop Casey off and park in a hurry when the next time the cab stopped turned out to be Heather’s destination. Fortunately, as Casey told them, paying the fare took enough time for him to be able to catch up with the woman and tail her to a rather run down-looking apartment building.

“Not the kind of neighbourhood you’d expect,” Chuck said, panting slightly from their sprint, “Heather to visit, right?”

“No shit, Einstein,” Casey grunted.

“It’s ‘no shit, Sherlock’,” Chuck corrected the agent, though Sarah knew Casey wouldn’t care.

And, at this moment, neither did she. They had a spy to catch. Or two, depending on what exactly Heather was doing here.

If this was an op ran by a competent enemy - and the Russians certainly qualified - then the door and backdoor would be covered. As would the fire escape. So once they knew on which floor the lift had stopped - fourth - Sarah approached the windows on the ground floor. Whoever lived here was either absent or asleep at this time of the night, and it didn’t take long to jam it open without making a sound.

She climbed in, crouching down as soon as she touched the floor, and quickly searched the flat. Absent it was - the bed was still made. No one had slept there tonight. Which meant the occupant might return any moment, of course, if they were clubbing or working the night shift.

She went back to the window and helped Chuck, boosted by Casey, inside. “Let’s go,” she whispered, moving to the flat’s door. Chuck followed, not quite silently, but not stumbling around either, despite Casey’s muttered curse.

A moment later, they were on the stairs, making their way up to the fourth floor, Sarah on point. Slowly, though - any decent spy would have left… There! A spy camera covering the stairs on the third floor. And she couldn’t see a way around it.

She signalled the others. Time to break into another flat.

The third floor’s apartment beneath their target was occupied, but the young couple living there was asleep on their bed when Sarah entered. Asleep and high, judging by the remnants of syringes left on the table.

Of course, Casey gagged and tied them up anyway. Better than tranquing them, which could cause a fatal overdose together with the drugs in their bloodstream, but still quite a shock. But they couldn’t risk interference from anyone.

Out on the balcony, she looked up. It wasn’t an easy climb, but doable - for her and Casey. Chuck would struggle, at least. “I’m checking,” she signalled Casey, who nodded and dragged Chuck back inside.

Sarah climbed onto the railing, balancing herself with one hand on the metal tube holding the sunshade in place, then took a deep breath and jumped, grabbing ahold of the edge of the target balcony and pulling herself up. Jackpot - she had a direct view of the flat’s living room, where Heather was sitting on the couch, faced by a brutish looking man with tattooed arms.

Neither was looking her way, and she couldn’t spot a camera here, so she quickly climbed all the way up and pressed herself to the wall next to the door - and the window, which wasn’t entirely closed.

_“...need to work on your husband. My boss is getting impatient. If you can’t deliver, he’ll take ‘direct action’.”_

A female voice - Petranova?

_“I just need a little more time. Mark’s sick, and so he hasn’t called work yet. I can’t push him too much without looking suspicious.”_

That was Heather - she had sounded like that every time she had been late with homework.

_“Didn’t you say you had him under control when you contacted us?”_

_“I did! And I do! But he’s sick - and on our holiday! That’s not my fault - I told him he should eat less junk food!”_

It actually was her fault - Mark was playing sick to protect Heather. And now it turned out Heather was a traitor.

Sarah inched a little forward and used a mirror to check the room. Heather, Petranova and the muscle she had seen already. No one else.

Good odds. And with Heather revealed as a spy, using Mark to feed the Russians disinformation wouldn’t work - he wouldn’t be able to fool his own wife. That meant they could and should hit them.

She pushed her radio’s button three times - the signal to Casey to charge upstairs. Then she waited until she heard a Russian curse and kicked the balcony door open.

Her first shot, silenced, dropped the beefy Russian on the way to the door. She turned to shoot Petranova, but the other spy was too quick, and Sarah had to jump to the side, rolling into cover behind the couch, to avoid getting double-tapped. She came up, leading with her pistol, lining up a shot, but before she could fire, someone kicked her gun out of her hand. Heather!

Sarah slid around the other woman, making her block Petranova’s line of fire, then deflected Heather’s next kick, following up with grabbing the leg. She swept the woman’s other foot, but Heather managed to twist while she fell, planting her foot in Sarah’s stomach.

That ended up saving her life - as Sarah folded over, two shots from Petranova passed over her head. She dropped to the floor and used a capoeira-move to grapple Heather before the other woman could get up. But Petranova was moving around the couch and would reach…

The sound of breaking wood, followed by shots told her Casey had arrived. Baring her teeth, she focused on Heather, rolling to the side to avoid a series of punches, then kicked out, landing a glancing blow that opened a gash across Heather’s scalp.

The woman recoiled but recovered before Sarah could follow through from her spot on the ground and managed to duck under Sarah’s roundhouse kick. She didn’t manage to dodge Sarah’s mule-kick, though, and doubled over, stumbling, with a grunt of pain.

Just as she was lining up another roundhouse kick that would knock Heather out, Sarah’s opponent charged straight ahead, tackling her. Both went down in a tangle of limbs, with Sarah getting the breath knocked out of her when Heather landed on her. The other woman didn’t waste this opportunity and rabbit-punched Sarah in the chest and stomach.

That exposed her own head, though, and Sarah hit her with a two-hit combo right in the chin and temple, then headbutted her when she pitched forward.

Stunned, Heather rolled off Sarah, who quickly jumped to her feet and put the woman down with a kick to the temple. Her former teenage nemesis collapsed like a wet bag of cement. 

Sarah turned around. Petranova was on the ground, a hole in her head. Casey shrugged. “Too dangerous to take alive.”

Chuck had obviously been trying to avoid looking at either of the bodies. “Sarah!” he exclaimed, rushing over to her. “Are you hurt?”

“Not seriously,” she replied. She was lying - she would be sporting nasty bruises soon enough. But they would fade.

On the other hand, she would treasure the memory of beating down Heather for a long time.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, December 8th, 2007**

“Good work, agents, Mr Bartowksi.”

“Thank you, general.”

Chuck smiled, even though he hated the way the general emphasised the fact that he wasn’t a real spy. Just an ‘intelligence asset’.

“We’ve moved Mr Ratner to a safe location. Now that he doesn’t have to worry about the safety of his wife any more, he won’t be tempted to betray the country any more,” Beckman went on. Though the man would be kept under observation for the foreseeable future anyway, just to avoid another attempt to turn him. He had been leaking intel, after all.

“What about Mrs Ratner?” Sarah asked.

“She’s currently being treated for her concussion and other wounds, but we’ll be able to interrogate her soon.”

Sarah’s smile was a little scary, Chuck found. Not just a little, he corrected himself. At least she hadn’t gloated when she had informed Mark that Heather had betrayed him. Mark had been devastated by the news. Anyone would have been, really - Chuck knew exactly how the man was feeling.

“Now, I’ve been informed that you’ve hired a certain person as an employee of the store serving as a front for this base.”

After a moment during which Sarah didn’t reply, Chuck cleared his throat. “Temporarily,” he said. “Caridad already knows about our base and mission, so she was the perfect choice to keep the store running while we went on a mission.” 

Beckman looked like she had bitten into a lemon. “Her payment could be considered financing a foreign intelligence operation.”

“She’s not being paid anything more than standard wages for a waitress,” Chuck was quick to point out. “That’s not enough to pay for any mission.” He glanced at Sarah. This was her cover story, so shouldn’t she say anything?

Sarah obviously didn’t feel like arguing for her nominal employee. Which, while totally understandable in light of the lingering tension between her and Caridad, felt a little mean to Chuck.

The general obviously wanted to say something else - ask for more information, probably - but she merely nodded very curtly. “Dismissed.” The screen went dark before anyone present managed to say their goodbyes.

Chuck sighed loudly. “That went well.”

“The mission, or your little lie about the Slayer?” Sarah asked.

“Lie?” Chuck stared at her. “She’s not getting paid more than minimum wage, is she?”

“She gets free food as part of the contract. Have you seen how much she eats?”

“Oh.” Chuck hadn’t really considered that.

Sarah nodded. “We have to hope that this slime demon business is solved soon, or we’ll look as if we’re embezzling money.”

Chuck winced as if he were the one with bruises covering most of his torso. Although he couldn’t help thinking that this wouldn’t be necessary if they had a cover that didn’t require pretending to be full-time employees to the point of almost working full-time.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 8th, 2007**

“Chuck! Sarah!”

Ellie was standing in the yard when they pulled into the parking lot. Chuck flinched a little.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked as she parked her car.

“Ellie must have been waiting for us to arrive,” he explained. “That means she wants something. Urgently.” He knew his big sister, after all.

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Well… if she wanted me to do something for her, she would simply text me if she couldn’t catch me. Which means she wants me to do something for myself.”

“You mean this is an intervention?” Sarah asked as she got out of the car.

“Yes,” Chuck managed to say before Ellie reached them. “Chuck! Sarah! Dinner tonight, at our place!”

“Uh, sis…”

She shook her head, frowning. “You’ve been eating out all week, and Morgan told me how much stress you had at work, with half the staff sick, and Caridad making a scene. So: Family dinner tonight. Devon’s making his special roast.”

That pretty much meant they had to go. Chuck nodded. “Of course we’ll be there.”

Sarah agreed.

“Great! See you at eight!” Ellie turned and headed back to her apartment.

“All this dread about a dinner invitation?” Sarah asked with a grin.

He grimaced. “That’s the bait. She’s planning something, I’m telling you.” He knew her.

“You’re over-reacting, Chuck…”

Uh-oh. Sarah didn’t look amused any more. “I’m just saying!”

She shook her head as they entered their apartment.

*****

“What have you been doing all week? We barely saw you at all,” Ellie said an hour later as she served the mashed potatoes.

“We didn’t see Morgan or Caridad either,” Devon added, slicing the roast.

“That’s not exactly something to worry about,” Ellie commented. “We wouldn’t want to roast an entire cow, would we?”

“Caridad doesn’t exactly eat that much,” Chuck remarked. His sister frowned, so he added: “Just almost?”

Sarah seemed to find it amusing. “We met two of my old schoolmates who were spending a week in Los Angeles. They invited us to dinner.”

“All week?” Devon asked with a grin.

“Not all week,” Chuck cut in. “But, uh…” He reached over to hold Sarah’s hand. “Seeing them having fun going out kind of made us try it as well. A sort of vacation at home.”

“Yes,” Sarah confirmed his impromptu cover story. “It was a blast, too.”

“Oh, you could have invited them!” Ellie said. “We’d have loved to meet some of your friends, Sarah!”

“Ah,” Sarah’s smile grew more than a little forced. “I wouldn’t call them my friends. Back in high school, Heather and I had a little rivalry going.”

Chuck managed not to cough at hearing that. “Oh, yes. But it’s all in the past, now.”

“Oh, yes.” Sarah nodded with a smile. “We settled all lingering issues between ourselves.”

“That’s good,” Devon replied. “Carrying grudges isn’t a good thing.”

“Indeed.” Sarah nodded with such an honest expression, even Chuck almost believed for a moment.

*****


	6. The Season Part 1

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 10th, 2007**

“You don’t have to come with me, Chuck,” Sarah told him as they drove up to her usual parking spot. “I’m just checking The Castle before I open the store.”

He knew that - it was part of their daily routine. And they would have been contacted by the CIA already if there were anything urgent to deal with. “I don’t mind. I’m a little early,” he said.

“Really?”

“According to Buy More standards,” he explained with a grin. At her slight frown, he added: “I’m still the most punctual among the staff. Apart from Casey.”

“Ah.”

“Speaking of,” he went on, “I was wondering about our cover. The way we had to shuffle things around and deal with Buy More stuff when we get a mission…” He shrugged. “It just feels a little… suboptimal, you know? Do you usually pick such cover jobs?”

“Chuck, we got these cover jobs because of you.”

“I kind of figured that out. But usually, you wouldn’t be working close to full time in a store, would you?” He leaned against the counter.

“No, I wouldn’t. Unless it was the only way to get close to a target.” She opened the secret door to The Castle in the storage room. “But, usually, I’d be leaving the area after a mission.”

Oh. He pressed his lips together. 

She nodded. “And you can’t really leave your friends and family and move to Langley, can you?”

He winced behind her back as he followed her down the stairs. “Actually, I think Ellie would be at least a little bit happy if I were to abandon my promising career at the Buy More and get a high-paying job as a data analyst for the CIA.” His sister would be a hypocrite if she got mad at him for finally following her advice to ‘stop wasting your talents, Chuck’.

“We can’t hire you for the CIA, not even as a cover story,” Sarah said, turning to face him. “A mole would quickly track your past, and you’d get on the radar of Fulcrum.”

“Uh, I was just commenting hypothetically on Ellie’s reaction.” Mostly. He smiled. “I wouldn’t like to leave my family and friends.” Only sometimes, and that didn’t count.

“And Caridad would probably try to track you down,” Sarah muttered, checking The Castle’s surveillance system.

“She’s been a lot less, uh, flirty,” he pointed out.

Sarah’s huff told him that she didn’t think the Slayer had stopped her pursuit of Chuck. “Anyway, so there’s no chance that we could switch to a less demanding cover here?” he asked.

“Not for the time being.”

Chuck was both disappointed and relieved.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 10th, 2007**

“Bartowski! You’re late!”

Chuck winced as he put down his bag on the Nerd Herd desk. Getting greeted by Big Mike early in the morning was never a good thing. It usually meant more work, a complaint, or both. “Sorry, Big Mike,” he said, “but my girlfriend had a small computer problem, which I had to solve,” he lied.

“Did she hire Nerd Herd?” Big Mike frowned at him, hands on his broad hips.

“Uh… no?”

“Then she doesn’t get your time - the time you owe the Buy More franchise!” Big Mike bellowed. “I know some people have been taking it easy in the store, but from an Assistant Manager, I expect exemplary conduct!”

“And you’ll get it, Big Mike. Have I ever disappointed you?” Chuck knew he hadn’t - although having a backdoor into the computer system and CIA hacking tools helped a lot with that.

“Yes. Like, right now, by being late, man!” The large man shook his head. “But things will change. Corporate sent us an expert to increase the store’s efficiency ratings. Emmet!”

A man dressed in a freshly pressed Buy More uniform complete with tie and wearing an eager smile appeared at Big Mike’s side. “Yes, sir?”

“Chuck, this is Emmet Milbarge. He’s our new efficiency expert. Buy More Corporate personally selected him. Emmet, this is Chuck Bartowski, my assistant manager.”

“And chief Nerd Herder,” Chuck added with a grin as he held out his hand.

“I see.” Milbarge’s handshake was weak and his smile about as honest as a politician’s. “You’re responsible for the store’s staff, then, right?”

The store’s staff, of which half a dozen people hadn’t yet arrived, Chuck realised with a sinking feeling. “Yes.”

“I see,” the Buy More Corporate stooge repeated himself as his teeth started to show.

*****

“We need to get Caridad in here!” Lester declared in a whisper at the Nerd Herd desk shortly before Chuck’s regular break.

“What?” Chuck asked, surprised. That was the first time Lester wanted the Slayer in the store, as far as he could remember.

“Yes!” Lester glanced over his shoulder. “She can slay Milbarge! I’m sure that he is a demon in disguise, sent to ruin our lives!”

“She can’t slay him!” Chuck protested.

“Yeah, dude,” Morgan agreed. Chuck smiled at him in gratitude for the support. Until his friend went on. “I already snuck her in to check - Milbarge is a normal human. No Slayer prey.”

“Damn!” Lester gritted his teeth. “We have to do something, though - this pest is ruining the store!”

“Yes,” Morgan added. “Employee morale is in the gutter. Stress levels are up. People are burning out.”

“Milbarge has been working for a little more than one hour so far,” Chuck pointed out.

“He’s stressing me!” Lester said. “Told me I wasn’t meeting house call quotas! I’m a Mac specialist! I don’t do PCs!”

“He’s planning to cut our hard-earned breaks!” Morgan added in a whisper. “I overheard him talking to Big Mike. Soon, we’ll be reduced to eating gruel at our posts, working nonstop from dawn to dusk!”

“I think you’re being melodramatic,” Chuck said. The usual two-hour lunch break certainly could do with a little trimming, in his opinion. “Now, I’m taking my fifteen minutes morning break,” he announced with a smile as he straightened. “Lester, you’re in charge until I return.”

“I’m acting assistant manager?” Lester asked, eyes widening.

“No,” Chuck replied. “You’re handling the Nerd Herd desk. Also, you can’t assign any jobs to me.”

“Oh.” Lester’s face fell, and Morgan looked relieved. As if Chuck would let Lester run the store!

“Anyway - see you later, alli…” Chuck trailed off as Milbarge appeared around the next aisle. “Bartowski! Where are you going?”

“I’m going on my break,” Chuck told him.

“The break room is the other way.”

“I’m taking my break with my girlfriend.” Chuck pointed through the store’s entrance towards Wienerlicious. “She runs the store there.”

“That’s not according to Buy More guidelines,” Milbarge said. It looked like he tried not to sneer too much and was failing. “The staff has an assigned break room for a reason.”

“We’re not required to spend our break in the break room,” Chuck retorted. “I checked,” he added.

“Staff members aren’t required to use the break room - although they’re encouraged to do so - but management has to have a constant presence in the store.” The man sniffed. “And as assistant manager, you are, barely, management.”

All the work and none of the perks, Chuck thought - he was doing his usual Nerd Herder work anyway. “Big Mike is here,” he said. “And he’s the manager of the store.”

Milbarge narrowed his eyes. “He can’t be everywhere. That’s why you are an assistant manager. And handling the staff is one of your core duties, isn’t it?”

According to the contract, yes. Chuck nodded, trying not to glare at the man.

“You can’t do this if you abandon the store to fool around with your girlfriend on company time!”

“What?” Chuck stared at him. As if they would… Well, he had some fantasies, but fifteen minutes certainly wasn’t long enough!

“So, it’s my advice - which I’m sure the manager will heed - that management should spend their breaks in the store, to be available in case of emergencies.” The odious man sniffed. “And not support our competition.”

“Competition? The Buy More isn’t a restaurant or food stand,” Chuck exclaimed.

“We might expand into catering,” Milbarge retorted. “In any case, my decision stands.”

Chuck rolled his eyes. “Fine. The break room it is.” He pulled out his cell phone to inform Sarah.

“And don’t stay too long!” Milbarge tapped his wristwatch. “You’ve got six and a half minutes left!”

What? Chuck gaped.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 10th, 2007**

“...and then he told me that I was already signed out before he found me, and that it was the employee’s duty to sign in whenever they were on company time, so me failing to do so as soon as he started to talk to me was my own fault, for which I was liable!” Chuck said, snarling, between bites of great Kung Pao. “And then he threatened to report me for not taking my mandatory break in full.”

“And that’s the reason we’re eating lunch in the Buy More’s parking lot?” Sarah asked.

“Technically, it’s the loading ramp and, therefore, part of the store,” he pointed out. “But, well… yes?” He sighed. “That man is really a nuisance.” And really annoying. “If he had his way, we’d live in the store, always ready to work when needed.”

“He sounds rather unpopular,” she commented.

"Yes!” he agreed. “He’s the personification of all that’s wrong with Corporate America!”

“That’s treasonous talk, Bartowski.”

Chuck looked over his shoulder and saw Casey standing behind them and taking a large bite out of a sandwich. He looked angry - although that wasn’t unusual for him. “That’s freedom of speech,” Chuck corrected the spy.

Casey snarled at him, then bit into his meal as if he was trying to kill it by tearing out its non-existent throat.

“Do I detect hostility that’s above the norm?” Chuck asked. He tried to hide his grin. “You’ve met our newest employee as well, then?”

“I’ve met the man.” Casey grinned. “And he has my full support. About time the dead weight around here is taken to task!” He took another bite from his sub, waved the rest and left.

“There goes my hope that Casey would be annoyed enough to arrange an accident - a non-lethal one, of course! - for Milbarge,” Chuck said in a low voice.

“That is back on the table as soon as Milbarge becomes an obstacle to our next mission,” Sarah said. “But since he’s only a temporary addition to the staff, eliminating him would pose an unnecessary risk to your cover.”

Chuck sighed. “Let’s hope he’ll be gone soon. There are a dozen other Buy More stores in the area with staff he could terrorise.”

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 11th, 2007**

“You know,” Chuck said, staring at the corpse on the Buy More loading ramp, clearly visible under Casey’s flashlight despite the late - or early - hour, “when I hoped he’d be gone soon, I didn’t mean for him to die. Who did this?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Casey snapped.

Sarah pressed her lips together. “According to our surveillance, he was inspecting the store’s stocks after it closed. He must have heard something since he suddenly went out here to check.”

“He must have found whoever made a noise,” Casey said, “and paid for it with his life. I’m thinking it was a burglar he surprised - your deadbeat friends don’t have the guts to do this.”

“They wouldn’t murder someone! Not for being annoying, at least,” Chuck added - who knew what Jeff and Lester would do if they thought they were in danger? And Morgan certainly was capable of killing someone - he had killed vampires and other demons before.

Casey grunted. “He was beaten to death by a masked man. By the time I arrived, the killer had already escaped. Classic startled burglar murder.”

“Not exactly.”

Chuck didn’t scream, even though he was startled by Caridad’s sudden appearance. At least he didn’t draw a weapon on her, unlike Sarah and Casey.

The Slayer ignored both and bent down over the body, sniffing. “He smells faintly like a slime demon.” She looked at Chuck. “This was done by one of those constructs.”

Shit.

“They must really want to kill Jeff,” Chuck said after a moment, “if they sent another one to the Buy More after already having lost one construct.” Although it might be a case of the sunk cost fallacy.

“And with the Slayer on the job,” Caridad added.

“They might not know that,” Chuck pointed out.

“Who else could have killed one of those slime constructs?”

“Good point,” Chuck admitted, ignoring the slight frown on Sarah’s face, and the not so slight snarl of Casey. “Does that make them dumb or desperate?”

Caridad frowned. “Hard to say. Dumb, probably - they came to hunt in my city, after all. And they could pick easier areas to hunt demons.”

Chuck had a chilling thought. “Unless they aren’t hunting just any slime demons or half-demons, and they need to hunt in this area.”

Caridad grimaced. “Oh, no!”

“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

“It could be a prophecy. Which usually means it’s an apocalypse,” Caridad explained. “It’s the season, anyway.”

“What?” Sarah gasped. “An apocalypse? Like those you told us about?”

“Well… off-season. May is apocalypse season,” Chuck said, trying to sound less concerned than he felt.

“Apocalypses are also in season in December,” the Slayer replied.

“What kind of threat are we facing here?” Sarah asked in a sharper tone. And Casey was glaring.

“Uh…” Chuck cleared his throat. “That’s hard to say - we don’t know if there’s a prophecy or apocalypse; it’s all speculation so far. If there’s an apocalypse, it’s usually an event that could, if not stopped, destroy a town, or a city.”

“Or the world, but we haven’t had one of those for a while,” Caridad said. “Three years ago, there were some volcano cultists in the Pacific trying to make an extinguished underwater volcano erupt, which could have caused a giant tsunami somehow, but Faith stopped that.”

“Faith?” Casey asked.

“A Slayer,” Caridad replied. “Not the prayer and stuff faith.”

“Second-most experienced Slayer,” Chuck added. “She was in Sunnydale in my last year there.”

Caridad pouted. “I was in Sunnydale as well! In its last year!”

“A giant tsunami?” Sarah looked doubtful.

“Like Krakatoa, but underwater,” Chuck said. He’d had nightmares for a while after Morgan had casually informed him about this particular mission.

“Krakatoa.”

“Yes, the eruption in 1883, which…” Chuck trailed off as he realised that Sarah hadn’t asked for an explanation. 

“That’s what could happen here?”

“It’s just a possibility,” Chuck was quick to reassure her. “The absolute worst case. It’s much more likely that the demons behind this are just stubborn, dumb or both.”

“Yeah!” Caridad chimed in. “California’s had a dozen near-apocalypses, but that was before the Sunnydale Hellmouth was closed and Wolfram & Hart destroyed. It’s been pretty safe since then.”

That wasn’t as reassuring as the Slayer probably thought it would be, Chuck knew. But that was something for the Council to worry about - they had more urgent problems. Such as a body at the Buy More. 

He cleared his throat. “So, uh… What about him? I don’t want to sound too callous, but if he gets found here, it’ll complicate things.” If this really was an apocalypse in the making, the last thing anyone needed was a murder investigation on the spot. Perhaps they could claim an escaped gorilla had killed Milbarge...

“We can drop the body somewhere else,” Caridad said.

Casey shook his head. “Half the degenerates on the store staff would be suspects if the police started an investigation. And they will, once he misses work.”

“And the police might discover some of our surveillance measures,” Sarah added. “And that could draw attention we really can’t afford.”

“I’ll arrange an accident,” Casey said.

“And I’ll inform Phil.” Caridad nodded. “He’ll check with the Council.” She waved and left, jumping over the fence behind the store.

Chuck looked at Sarah. He knew that expression. “And I’m going to tell you everything I know about apocalypses in great detail?”

She nodded.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 11th, 2007**

“So, the most common attempted apocalypses were centred upon opening a Hellmouth,” Sarah summed up Chuck’s slightly meandering tale.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“But Los Angeles doesn’t have a Hellmouth.”

“No. Which is why it’s pretty peaceful with regards to demons, compared to Sunnydale.”

Sarah wouldn’t have called the city ‘peaceful’. Not after her various encounters with demons. “You don’t seem overly worried,” she commented. Chuck didn’t seem to be more nervous than he usually was on a mission. Sarah herself had to struggle with the urge to evacuate the entire station.

“Well, the Council’s got a good track record,” Chuck said. “The world’s still standing, after all, and the only town that got destroyed under their watch was Sunnydale - and that was a special case. If there’s an apocalypse threatening the city, they’ll know what to do. If needed, they’ll call in every Slayer available. That’s how they saved Los Angeles the last time, in 2004.”

“Every Slayer available?” Sarah didn’t want to imagine dozens, perhaps hundreds of Caridads, gathered in one place. “Wouldn’t that lead to a famine after a few days?”

Chuck laughed. Sarah laughed as well. But she was wondering - just how many Slayers did work for the Council?

But she had to sleep now; it was already far too late for a workday. 

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 11th, 2007**

Chuck was late to work in the morning - he had stayed up far too late last night, which had been the fault of the late Emmet Milbarge. Even dead the man had managed to make Chuck’s life more difficult. And to make him feel guilty for not being sad about the man’s demise. If they were on a Hellmouth, Chuck would have had the body burned just to ensure it wouldn’t hatch a real demon. He didn’t know any species that reproduced like that, but better safe than sorry. And it would have gotten rid of the body as well.

As he had expected, he was the last to arrive - Milbarge’s one-day-long reign of terror must have scared the rest of the staff into actually coming to work on time. If not for the fact that everyone looked nervous and jittery, as if they expected to be ambushed at any moment, Chuck would have been happy about that.

“Chuck!”

“Morning, Morgan.” Morgan was the only one who looked relaxed, Chuck noticed as he put his case down behind the Nerd Herd desk.

“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” Subtle, Chuck’s friend wasn’t. Morgan leaned forward on the counter and whispered: “Caridad gave me the great news!”

Chuck clenched his teeth. “Morgan!” he hissed, “a man was murdered.”

“It was only Milbarge - trust me, he had it coming.” Morgan chuckled. “Imagine if he had arrived when Caridad was still working here! He would have spent the next month in traction!”

“It’s not funny, Morgan,” Chuck snapped. “Besides, aren’t you concerned about the possible reason behind the murder?”

“Nope.” Morgan shook his head. “The Scoobies would have noticed a prophecy already. You know Willow. And they have Seers.”

“I know that Willow is very, very busy,” Chuck replied. “And that Seers are unreliable.”

“Well, if there’s a problem brewing, the Council’s send help.” Morgan shrugged again. “I’m not going to let this ruin my Milbarge-free day!”

“Morgan!” Chuck looked around. “You can’t act like this. No one knows about his death yet. Casey’s arranging an accident, but if you act like this, people will assume you knew already that he wasn’t coming to work.”

“Yes?”

“Which means you’ll be a murder suspect,” Chuck explained.

“Oh.”

At least now, Morgan looked as nervous as the rest of the staff.

“Bartowski! Where have you been? First Emmet, and now you? My office, now!”

Chuck sighed. Once again, Milbarge caused trouble for him posthumously.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 11th, 2007**

“I’ve informed the Council of your suspicion. They’ll look into it.”

Brown-Smythe didn’t seem to put much stock into Chuck’s theory, Sarah thought. He was the expert, of course, and he had the experience - although Chuck had grown up in Sunnydale. Or Sunnyhell, as he sometimes called it.

“Yes,” Caridad chimed in between scarfing down her fifteenth free hot dog for today. “If there’s anything to fear, they’ll find out.”

Sarah couldn’t decide what annoyed her more - the fact that Caridad had managed to get her to close the store for this briefing, or that the Slayer was stuffing herself on the CIA’s dime.

“More importantly, I’ve managed to find a few substances that might affect the constructs.” Brown-Smythe pulled out a few coloured bottles.

Sarah frowned. “Are those perfume bottles?”

The older man coughed. “I found some of those flacons make excellent containers for specially-prepared concoctions. Due to their unique appearance, there’s a very low danger of mixing them up in a fight or when visibility is low.”

It was a logical explanation. Sarah was smiling anyway. As were Chuck and Casey. Well, Casey was baring his teeth while leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“He still won’t let me bill the Council for my perfume,” Caridad complained. 

“How dangerous are they if they are spilt on a human?” Chuck asked.

“Like us,” Grimes added.

“Most are harmless, as long as they do not end up in your eyes or mouth and nose. They might cause a rash on exposed skin, though - like some of the perfume that was in the bottles, I might add,” Brown-Smythe explained.

“‘Some’.” Casey didn’t move, but he slightly cocked his head.

“Ah, yes. These two are rather dangerous.” The Watcher held up two bottles - green and red, respectively. “Acidic and poisonous.”

“That means if we stumble and they break, we’ll be dead or the Joker,” Grimes said with a grimace.

“Easy solution: don’t stumble,” Casey spat with a sneer.

“That’s not easy in a fight with demons,” Grimes replied with uncharacteristic backbone. “They tend to knock you around - even tough guys like you.” But Casey bared his teeth again, adding a little growling, and Grimes flinched and ducked his head. “Just saying.”

Brown-Smythe cleared his throat. “I’ve prepared a variety of flacons so that next time we encounter one of those constructs, we can test them and find out which works best.” He lifted a suitcase and put it on the table he had commandeered for this meeting. “I think it would be best if Caridad kept it here, out of the reach of certain elements of the Buy More staff.”

Sarah agreed with the decision. As much as she wasn’t keen on having magic vials in the store, she disliked the thought of letting Jeff or Lester, or their friends, get close to such substances.

Grimes, of course, wanted some ‘ready in the store as the obvious target’, and Chuck just had to support his friend.

Between Sarah, Casey, Brown-Smythe and the Slayer who apparently wanted to hoard all weapons and what she considered weapons for herself, the proposal to stash some ‘harmless’ vials in the Buy More was shot down. Sarah didn’t think that she was the only one who thought that the Buy More’s future looked a little brighter for that.

*****

Unfortunately, as Sarah realised later when the ‘briefing’ had ended, it also meant that any health inspection of the Wienerlicious would find a case full of very hazardous substances stashed in the store’s storage room. Granted, the case was placed with the cleaning supplies, but Sarah didn’t think that would matter very much to an inspector. 

Not that there would be a real inspection any time soon - the store had been inspected before its opening already. But there was a reason for their regulations. Sarah really didn’t want to find out what spilling a dozen concoctions - magic concoctions - would do to the store. Or to herself, if she were anywhere nearby.

Or to The Castle beneath the floor. The base was supposed to be isolated and protected, but the planning hadn’t taken magic into account. She could only hope that NBC-proofing would work against such things as well.

Shaking her head, she opened the case to check on its contents - she didn’t trust the ‘flacons’ that much - and discovered that the case was already missing two bottles. That meant… “Caridad!”

“Yes?” the Slayer yelled from the main room of the store. “No need to yell, I can hear you whisper and mutter just fine!”

Sarah pressed her lips together. She didn’t need to be reminded of the woman’s superior senses. Walking out of the storage room, she glared at her. “Where did you put the bottles?”

Caridad blinked, then her eyes flicked towards the counter.

Muttering a few curses, Sarah pushed past the Slayer and knelt down next to the counter.

And closed her eyes. “You’ve placed them behind the condiments.”

“Yes! Hidden, but handy!”

If there were a health inspection, they’d be made an example of, Sarah knew.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 11th, 2007**

“...and she thought hiding them behind ketchup and barbecue sauce would be a good idea!”

Chuck nodded in apparent agreement with Sarah, refraining from adding ‘Yes, dear.’ She was in a bad mood - more so than usual after spending a day with Caridad. “Well, she wouldn’t accidentally mix them up, so she doesn’t really think it’d be a problem for others,” he pointed out.

“And what would happen if the counter were smashed in a fight with a demon?” Sarah asked as she parked on their usual spot. “I’ve seen what happened in the Buy More.”

“Oh? When did… ah, the cameras, of course.” Chuck nodded, grimacing - he should have realised that at once.

“Yes. So don’t tell me it’ll be safe. The last thing we need is our base’s front being closed down for health reasons!” Sarah snapped as she got out of the car.

Of course, if there were a fight with a demon in the Wienerlicious, the store would be closed for repairs for a few days at least. But Chuck didn’t think pointing out that would help her mood. He started to walk towards their apartment. It still felt nice to think of that - their apartment. Not his. “Well, I don’t think…”

Sarah interrupted him by pulling him behind him and drawing her pistol. “Someone’s hiding in the bushes,” she whispered, staring towards their door.

“Hi, Chuck! Hi, Sarah!”

Chuck blinked He knew that voice. “Harmony?”

The vampire emerged from behind the bushes, brushing bits of foliage from her skimpy dress. “You need to clean up more here,” she remarked with a frown. “It’s, like, super-dirty there.”

“I’ll be sure to vacuum the bushes more often,” Chuck replied with all the sarcasm he could muster. “It wouldn’t do to inconvenience any stalker hiding there.”

All the sarcasm he could muster wasn’t enough for Harmony. She beamed at him. “Thanks! Ellie said she didn’t want to see me around, so I had to hide there.” The vampire pouted. “She was rather mean - I asked if she could warm up my blood bag for me in her microwave, ’cause I forgot to do it before I came here and got hungry, but she refused. Even though I was like all considerate and didn’t even ask if I could come in and do it myself because I know she’s got some issues with vampires. I had to drink my blood cold! Do you know how flat that tastes?”

“No, I don’t,” he replied. Was there a blood bag littering his garden? 

“Very flat. Blood needs to be warm, or it doesn’t taste right. Fresh would be best, but where can you get an otter in Los Angeles?” Harmony shook her head. “It’s so hard to be a vampire in this city!”

“How dreadful,” Sarah said with all the sincerity of a used car salesman.

“Exactly! Not only is it far too sunny all the time, but people look at you as if you were a freak if you ask for a Bloody Mary with real blood!” Harmony’s pout would have been almost impressive, if not for the hint of blood on her lips and the fangs peeking out.

“Aren’t Bloody Mary’s served cold?” Sarah asked.

“Well, it’s different with alcohol, duh,” Harmony replied. “Like with Spike and his Weetabix.” She shook her head with a grimace. “Those are awful, but not because of the temperature. Like, how can you eat cereal with blood?”

Chuck cleared his throat. “Not to interrupt such a fascinating discussion…”

“Well, you just did!”

He ignored her. “...but why are you here, Harmony?”

“Oh, right.” Harmony looked confused, then nodded. “I almost forgot why I came here.”

Chuck waited a moment, then cleared his throat again. “And why did you visit?”

“Ah! Lorne sent me. Why he couldn’t just call I don’t know - it’s not as if he can’t use a phone, right? I mean, he’s, like, almost human. But he said that he had a disturbing vision when a new guest got drunk and hummed a song while waiting at the bar. Apparently, there’s a group trying to summon a powerful demon or so. The Lord of Slimes, or something like it.”

Chuck felt his stomach drop.

*****

“I’ve informed Morgan, who’ll tell Phil and Caridad,” Chuck announced as he stashed his cell phone. He looked at the takeaway boxes on the counter. “I think we should eat quickly; this looks like a double-briefing day.”

Sarah laughed at the joke if only to break the tension. Chuck smiled in response, which was a good thing. She had known to expect the worst - it was an unspoken rule - but she had hoped that they were mistaken; that the ‘poachers’ were merely stubborn and - hopefully - stupid.

She opened her own box and grabbed the chopsticks. The noodles were great, but she couldn’t enjoy them properly.

“I wonder why Lorne sent Harmony, instead of calling us,” Chuck said between finishing one dumpling and picking up another. “She’s not the most reliable person, and this is important.”

“Saving face?” Sarah asked. “He isn’t exactly a fan of the Council, as I recall.” Or of Chuck and Morgan. She saw Chuck frown and added: “It’s stupid, but so is providing a neutral, safe space for monsters.” Stupid and reckless - at best. Providing aid to an enemy, at worst. She wasn’t a fan of the Slayer, but Caridad had the right idea about demons.

He nodded, if a little reluctantly, or so it seemed.

“Or he hoped that Harmony would get herself killed,” Sarah added, grinning to show she was joking. Mostly.

“Well, hiding in the bushes so Ellie wouldn’t see her wasn’t exactly the smartest decision,” Chuck admitted. “Even for Harmony.”

Sarah made a noncommittal noise as she swallowed another mouthful of noodles. Before she could say anything in response - and she had a few choice comments ready about that vampire’s intelligence, or lack thereof, ready - their phones buzzed as new messages arrived.

Sarah didn’t have to glance at hers to know both messages identical.

Chuck confirmed it: “Phil called for another meeting.”

*****

Casey’s apartment had gained some character, Chuck thought as he entered. It had also gained an impressive collection of medieval weaponry. And modern medieval style weaponry, such as a composite crossbow with more attachments than a maxed-out gun in Medal of Honour.

He was tempted to ask - jokingly, of course - if Caridad was moving into Casey’s apartment - but managed to control himself. Casey wasn’t exactly Mr Sense of Humour, and the situation was tense enough. Not to mention that Caridad might misunderstand the joke. Or, worse, think that Chuck might be jealous.

“New acquisitions?” Sarah, obviously, had no such qualms. But she was a trained spy who had known Casey for years.

The man grunted, then took a bite out of what looked like a ration bar. “Always be prepared.”

“I didn’t think you were a boy scout,” Chuck blurted out before he could help it. “I mean, I don’t know anything about your childhood, obviously.” It had been redacted in the man’s file.

Casey glared at him. “Instead of asking stupid questions, tell me what this meeting is about.”

“We’ve received intel that the people behind the slime constructs are trying to summon a powerful demon, possibly called ‘The Lord of Slimes’,” Chuck told him in his best spy voice.

Judging by Casey’s snort, Chuck’s best spy voice wasn’t enough. “And what are the capabilities of this demon?” he asked.

“Uh… I have no idea,” Chuck said. He didn’t cringe under the man’s glare, but he quickly added: “I’m no Watcher in training. That’s Morgan. However, I think we can expect a great amount of various dangerous slime. Probably acidic and poisonous. Or slime that hardens around you and traps you.”

“You’re speculating,” Casey said.

“Uh, yes,” Chuck replied. “But it’s based upon our experience with slime demons.” Mostly Jeff, of course.

Casey apparently didn’t think much of Chuck’s experience. Or of Chuck. But that was nothing new. Sarah reached out and grabbed, then gently squeezed his hand. He smiled at her - she was the best.

And he was the worst spy in the team.

*****

Morgan arrived fifteen minutes later. “Hi guys! I came as fast as I could.”

Casey scoffed, prompting Morgan to stare at him, then look at Chuck and mime ‘what’s wrong with him?’ behind the agent’s back.

Chuck shrugged. Casey was always angry, anyway.

“Anyway, Phil’ll take a little while longer,” Morgan said. “His Smart’s not the fastest car on the street, and he doesn’t let Caridad drive it.”

Which was a very smart decision, of course, Slayers tended to drive in a manner that scared professional race drivers. Better late than dead - by heart attack. Slayers rarely crashed.

“So…” Morgan looked around. “That’s a nice weapon collection.” He walked towards a cavalry sabre mounted on the wall, but before he could touch it, Casey was up in his face, snarling. “Don’t touch them.”

Morgan recoiled. “Uh… sure. I wasn’t going to. I just wanted to take a closer look. Never get between a man and his weapons, huh?”

Sometimes, Chuck wondered if his best friend had a death wish. Then he remembered that Morgan’s greatest wish was to become a Watcher - in the field.

*****

Finally, Phil arrived with Caridad. “Good evening, Mr Casey. Thank you for your hospitality. Sarah. Chuck. Morgan.” He nodded at everyone present.

Casey grunted something that sounded almost polite.

“Hi, everyone!” Caridad announced. “Oh, you got the pattern 1796 Heavy Cavalry Sword!” She was at the wall in a heartbeat and pulled the blade out. 

Chuck winced. That would be…

“Yes, I did.” Casey bared his teeth. No, that was a smile. “I had to threaten the delivery man so they wouldn’t dare to drop it at the door.”

“They tried to do that?” Caridad looked like she wanted to demonstrate the sword’s edge on the next FedEx employee.

“They do it with my other deliveries all the time,” Casey said.

Chuck blinked. Dear Lord - they were truly bonding! And he couldn’t even whisper to tell Sarah since Caridad would overhear.

“A fine sword. English quality,” Phil added. “I used one myself on occasion. But we’ve gathered here for something a little more urgent than discussing fine blades.” He turned to nod at Chuck. “I’ve informed London about Lorne’s message. They were alarmed.”

Chuck felt his stomach drop again. If the Scoobies were alarmed, things were about to turn ugly.

“As we speak, they’re on the way to Heathrow, to board the first plane to Los Angeles,” Phil went on.

“They?” Morgan asked.

“Miss Summers. Miss Rosenberg. Dr Summers. Mr Harris. And Miss Lehane.”

*****


	7. The Season Part 2

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 11th, 2007**

That’s… almost all of the Scoobies,” Morgan blurted out. “Shit, this is serious!”

“The Scoobies?” Sarah asked. She looked as if she didn’t trust her ears.

“Our old high school classmates, mostly,” Chuck explained. “Buffy Summers, the oldest living Slayer in the world.”

“Stopped a dozen apocalypses!” Morgan chimed in.

“Willow Rosenberg. Genius and witch,” Chuck said.

“One of the most powerful magic users on the planet,” his friend added. Fortunately, no one questioned his use of gaming terms.

“Xander Harris,” Chuck went on. Sarah looked at him, then at Morgan. “Well, he’s Xander.” Chuck shrugged. Explaining Xander was hard. Especially to a spy.

“Should that mean something?” Casey asked.

“He’s one of the Council’s most experienced Watchers, though that is partially owed to the regrettable casualties that the fight against the First Evil caused,” Phil said. “He lacks formal training, but he survived for seven years while hunting demons of all sorts on a Hellmouth.”

Which was far more impressive than it sounded, in Chuck’s opinion.

“And he knows a ton about everything!” Caridad gushed. “Weapons, construction, tactics - he taught me how to build improvised mines!”

“And we all should be grateful for it,” Phil said in a very dry voice. “Dr Summers is Miss Summers’s sister, and an accomplished linguist and archaeologist. And Miss Lehane is the second-oldest Slayer.”

“Don’t call her ‘Miss Lehane, or she’ll kick your ass!” Caridad said. “Call her Faith.”

Phil didn’t say anything, but Chuck caught a hint of a frown on the older Watcher’s face. “I bow to your experience on that topic, dear,” he said.

“You haven’t worked with them before?” Sarah asked.

“I’ve worked with Miss Rosenberg and Dr Summers,” Phil replied, “but I was quickly assigned to Caridad when I rejoined the Watchers Council, and I didn’t work with the others.”

“But we went to school with Buffy, Willow and Xander,” Morgan said. “It’s like a high school reunion!”

“Just without people like Heather,” Chuck was quick to add when he saw Sarah’s expression.

“Let’s hope so,” Casey said. “I’ve had my fill of traitors already.”

*****

**California, Los Angeles International Airport, December 12th, 2007**

Sarah didn’t like airports. Too many cameras, too many half-trained security guards whose reactions couldn’t be predicted in a crisis. Too many people for most ops. And she wasn’t carrying enough weapons for her peace of mind.

That they had a great cover - a reunion of Chuck and Grimes with their high school classmates - didn’t do much to calm her down. Not so quick on the heels of the Ratners affair. And after listening to Chuck and Grimes’s descriptions of the ‘Scoobies’. Especially the female members of this eclectic group. Meeting the high school crush - crushes in this case - of your partner was always a little stressful, after all.

“Look, there they are!” Chuck exclaimed, starting to wave. Grimes followed his example. At least they weren’t holding a sign.

Sarah looked at the group headed towards them. She could spot the two Slayers right away - they didn’t move but stalked. Summers and Lehane. The two most dangerous Slayers in the world, as far as Sarah knew.

And yet, her first thought upon spotting Summers was: My God, she’s short! Chuck and Grimes’s stories had made her sound as if she was seven feet tall. Even Caridad, who wasn’t a tall girl, would tower over Summers, if not for the blonde’s five-inch heels.

And the woman looked far too young for a contemporary of Chuck. Barely older than Caridad, Sarah noted with some envy. And in addition to that, she wore the miniskirt-business-chic - Italian cut - very well.

“Chuck! Morgan!” Summers called out, waving. 

“Yo,” Lehane was much more sedate in her greeting. She wore leather pants and a tiny tank top, under a battered leather jacket.

“Chuck! Morgan!” Rosenberg - she fit the description and the expected age and she was wearing a long skirt and a colourful blouse - joined them. And hugged both. “Good to see you, despite the circumstances.”

“You better have some food ready, or Buffy will start chewing on you. She almost made a scene when the flight attendants told her that ‘free snacks’ didn’t mean she got to empty the plane’s pantry. Unfortunately, she never learned to share as a child.”

And that would be Dr Summers, both through a process of elimination and because that kind of snark was a family privilege. Especially with Slayers.

“Hey!”

The only male among them, which would be Harris by default, laughed. “She did grumble about fraud and entrapment for an hour, though.”

Or perhaps it wasn’t just family, Sarah amended.

“Hey!”

“Everyone, this is Sarah Walker, my girlfriend,” Chuck announced.

They had been eyeing her before, but now every one of the newly arrived was openly studying her.

“So you’re the spy,” Summers said in a low voice. “Hi!” she added more loudly with a toothy smile.

Not the most friendly greeting, in Sarah’s opinion.

*****

Chuck cleared his throat. “Uh... how about we move to a more private place for all the private chat? Perhaps hit a drive-in on the way?” Everyone would be cranky and hungry from the long flight, after all.

“Oh, food! I’m starving!” Buffy said at once. “Let’s go!”

“We need to get the cars first,” Dawn said. “Unless you want to walk the whole way.”

“Well, duh, I meant that.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “And you knew it.”

Definitely cranky, Chuck thought.

“You didn’t look like you’d remembered. You looked like you’d pounce on the next slice of pizza you saw and savage it with your teeth.”

“What? Are you still grumpy about that? I told you, I had no idea that was your lunch! It wasn’t marked!”

“It was on my favourite plate!”

“No one has favourite plates! No one normal, at least. Besides, it was edible, so how could I have known it was yours? Usually, your pizza has all gross stuff on it!”

“Healthy food isn’t gross!”

“On a pizza, it is!”

Chuck glanced at Sarah. His girlfriend looked… well, not shocked. But surprised. Like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Sorry, Dawnie, I have to side with Buffy on that topic: Pizza’s not supposed to be healthy,” Xander cut in. “But we really should get moving before the nice security guards come and tell us to leave. Giles doesn’t like it if we have to use our diplomatic passports too often.”

“That was an emergency! They wanted to confiscate my new shoes!” Buffy complained.

“The new shoes you bought used from a guy selling them in the original packaging for a tenth of their value,” Dawn said.

“Well, yes. Flea markets are supposed to be cheap.”

“They’re also known for being outlets for fences.”

“Fences have outlets now? Wouldn’t that be illegal?”

“That was my point,” Dawn said.

“Why didn’t you say so? And what’s that got to do with your attempt to blame me for not properly storing your lunch?”

“Are they serious?” Sarah asked as they followed the bickering sisters to the airport’s exit.

“Uh…” Chuck hesitated. He looked around, but Morgan had ‘gone ahead to get the car’ and was no help.

“Of course we’re serious!” Buffy yelled from ahead of them. “Pizza is serious business! Especially if you’re hungry. Almost as serious as shoes!”

“Well… you heard her?” Chuck smiled at Sarah.

She didn’t seem to think it was funny. Neither did he, actually.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 12th, 2007**

“Ah… I missed this! You don’t get this in rainy old England!” Buffy exclaimed as she finished another hot dog in Wienerlicious.

“You can take the Slayer out of California, but you can’t take California out of the Slayer,” Xander said.

“It’s more like ‘Valley’ instead of ‘California’,” Dawn said as her sister ripped the first box open. “San Francisco’s got decent food.”

“Dawn! That’s treason!” Buffy managed to say between bites of greasy sausage and cheap buns.

“No. That’s me not worshipping junk food.”

“In junk food we trust…” Xander said, checking the next batch of hot dogs Caridad was preparing.

“Says the man who packed a suitcase full of Twinkies when he went to Africa,” Faith said.

“And got mistaken for a smuggler in Kenia,” Dawn added, “losing all your luggage.”

“Which is why we got the diplomatic passports in the first place,” Xander replied.

“No, that wasn’t why we got them,” Willow said.

“But they certainly helped. Should have seen the faces of the cops when I travelled back to Boston, and they tried to arrest me.” Faith grinned behind her own stack of boxes.

“They wanted to arrest you?” Sarah asked.

“Well, that was before Giles got me a pardon,” the Slayer answered.

Chuck winced at the glare he got from Sarah. Shouldn’t she be used to working with people with a less than perfect past? Besides, that wasn’t his secret to tell.

They were just missing Phil and Casey. And the shift at the Buy More was over, so Casey couldn’t be much longer. In fact, he should be here already.

Before he could think of a reason for their absence, Buffy cocked her head. “Oh, is that your sister whom I hear?”

Chuck looked and saw Ellie making a beeline towards the store - from the Buy More. And he suddenly realised that he had forgotten to inform Ellie about the Scoobies’ visit.

He reached the door just in time to meet her. “Hi, Ellie!” he said, beaming at her.

She frowned in return - he must have overdone it. “Chuck. I went to buy a replacement DVD player, and I noticed neither you nor Morgan were around, so I thought to check…” She trailed off, looking past him into the store. 

“Ah… some old friends are visiting,” he belatedly admitted.

“Old friends?” She frowned. “That’s Xander, there. And Willow. And Buffy.”

“Hi, Ellie!”

“What are you doing here?” Ellie’s frown deepened. “And Caridad’s wearing the store’s uniform… You’re not bankrupting Sarah by handing out free food to them?”

“Uh… you know about the slime demon hunters, right?” Chuck forced himself to keep smiling. “That problem is a little bigger than we thought.”

Ellie was smart. Probably smarter than himself. She understood right away. “Is this another graduation problem?” she asked, paling.

“Uh… possibly. We don’t know yet.” In a lower voice, he added: “Sorry, it was all very sudden.”

“I’ll go tell Devon.” She turned and walked towards the parking lot.

Chuck sighed. That could have gone better. He should have told her yesterday.

Casey’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Trouble in the family, Bartowski?”

“Hi, Casey. Come in,” Chuck said, ignoring Casey’s question and snort as the agent walked past him. Ellie’s view of the Scoobies was family business, so to speak.

And there was Phil and Caridad! He saw Phil’s Smart park next to two SUVs the Scoobies had rented - despite Willow’s concern that that made them look like government members.

*****

Lehane whistled when Casey entered, all but openly leering at him, Sarah saw. “Hi! I’m Faith,” the Slayer said, pushing off the counter she was leaning against and walking towards the agent with a very provocative sway of her hips only enhanced by that supernatural grace.

Casey blinked. “Hi,” he said, and Sarah noticed his eyes straying from the Slayer’s face. And, in her opinion, not just to check for threats and weapons.

Lehane must have noticed it as well - she shifted her weight, all but striking a pose straight out of a pinup calendar. And she was dressed for it, too. “You’re not seeing anyone right now, are you?”

Subtle as a sledgehammer.

“Ah…” Perhaps a little too blunt even for Casey - the man looked taken aback. As did Caridad, who was still busy with the hot dogs.

“Faith! Keep your hormones under control!” Dr Summers snapped.

“Don’t be jealous,” Lehane replied without taking her eyes off Casey. “I’m just liaising with the locals.”

“Is that what they are calling it these days?” Harris was grinning.

Brown-Smythe arrival interrupted the scene, and Casey took a few steps back to lean against the wall.

“Miss Summers.”

“It’s Buffy, Phil!”

"Dr Summers. Miss Lehane.”

“Faith. It’s Faith, Phil.”

“Mr Harris.”

“Xander. Mr Harris is my dad, and we don’t really want him here, do we?”

“Miss Rosenberg.”

Brown-Smythe hadn’t taken the advice about Lehane’s name, Sarah noticed. And Lehane wasn’t ‘kicking his ass’. The whole greeting and griping felt a little… not rehearsed, but not new. People going through the motions.

“Hi, Phil!”

“How was your flight?” Phil gamely made conversation.

“We were starved, as usual. And the stupid security people had issues with our weapons, even though they were clearly marked as diplomatic. Should have taken a private jet, but Giles is always so miserly with money, even though we have enough now!” Summers had an impressive pout. And a very immature attitude, in Sarah’s opinion.

“If he weren’t, we would be broke from your shopping trips alone,” Dr Summers said.

“That’s not true!”

“Don’t start that argument again!” Rosenberg spoke up from where she was texting.

Dr Summers huffed, but her sister stuck her tongue out, then asked: “How’s Kennedy?”

“Still sore that she couldn’t come,” Rosenberg answered.

“A broken leg will do that to you,” Harris commented. “Speaking from experience.”

"Kennedy?” Sarah asked.

“Willow’s girlfriend. She got hurt fighting a pack of Polgara demons when visiting Cleveland,” Summers explained.

“Girl forgot that they’re a little more dangerous on an active Hellmouth,” Lehane said.

“She didn’t forget,” Rosenberg said. “They had reinforcements.”

“As I said,” Lehane said with a smirk.

Sarah made a mental note that even Slayers didn’t heal instantly. They could be taken out of action for a while. Which wasn’t a good thing given their current crisis, of course.

“We’re out of hot dogs,” Caridad said - taking up a spot near Casey, Sarah noted. And sending a glance at Lehane. Who smirked at the other Slayer and slipped her leather jacket of her shoulders and arched her back - as if her supernaturally powered body suddenly needed some kinks to be worked out.

In response, Caridad moved closer to Casey. “Hey, Casey. Did you get the special bolts for your crossbow?” she asked. Rather transparently.

Sarah wanted to sigh. They had a potential apocalypse to deal with. They couldn’t afford such drama.

*****

Chuck sighed. Not even ten minutes had passed, and two Slayers were about to clash. And right above the secret CIA base under the store. Which really couldn’t afford to draw the attention a full-blown Slayer brawl would bring. Nor the destruction it would cause. 

He cleared his throat. “So, uh, should we talk about the apocalypse?” Anything to distract Faith and Caridad.

“We haven’t had dessert, yet!” Buffy piped up.

“You’ve had a dozen hot dogs,” Dawn was quick to point out. 

“Which means it’s the perfect time to eat dessert!”

Chuck made a mental note to buy more ice cream on the way home tomorrow. He didn’t think their current stock would survive a visit. He walked over to Sarah. “Better grab your favourite ice cream before the Slayers get it,” he whispered.

“I heard that!” Buffy complained.

And even Chuck could hear Sarah grind her teeth. At least he thought so.

Ten minutes and all the ice cream in the store’s fridge later, the Scoobies were finally ready to talk about the looming threat to the city. For a given definition of ‘ready’, of course.

“...and we found a prophecy about the Lord of Slimes, which is another name for the Slime Lord,” Willow explained.

“It’s not exactly a prophecy, more like a demonologist’s treatise about the behaviour and capabilities of it,” Dawn cut in. “What the monster will likely do of released, in short.”

“A number of scholars took it to be a prophecy,” Willow argued, “so that possibility should not be dismissed out of hand.”

“They were wrong,” Dawn replied. “And they would have known that, had they translated the original scroll correctly.”

“We don’t have the original scroll, only Plinius’s transcription,” Willow pointed out.

“Plinius was the foremost authority of the subject. His treaties on certain demons are still referenced in all modern books,” Dawn retorted.

“That doesn’t mean he was any more correct on that particular subject than the Greek school.”

“Girls!” Xander cut in. “It doesn’t really matter. Prophecy or documentary, we’ll stop the monster either way."

Dawn glared at him, and Willow frowned - obviously, they disagreed about the lack of importance of proper academic classification. But Chuck saw the rest of the group nod in agreement. Even Sarah.

Willow huffed. “Anyway, we can expect a flood of slime. Whole villages were said to be buried under thick, gross slime in ancient times, suffocating the population and slowly dissolving them.”

“Like a gelatinous cube!” Morgan exclaimed.

“Yes!” Willow beamed. “Although it’s not clear if the demon can control and move the slime, or merely starts producing it at one point and lets gravity do the work. What we do know, though, is that it can change the slime’s properties - acidic, poisonous, more or less viscous, colours and possibly even temperature.”

That sounded horrible, in Chuck’s opinion. “That means even chemical counter-agents won’t work since the slime can adapt.”

“Not on the slime - but the demon itself isn’t made of slime, according to our sources, but more similar to slime demons.”

“Which we can kill!” Faith announced, baring her teeth.

“But we need to catch the thing upon arrival,” Buffy pointed out, “or it’ll be covered in enough slime to fill a house.”

“Which means it’ll be almost invulnerable,” Willow added. “So we need to keep them from finding whatever they need to summon the Slime Lord.”

“Which, according to our information, seems to be Jeff, a half-slime demon,” Phil said. “Who is currently hiding beneath the Buy More store.”

“They haven’t made another attempt, though," Caridad said.

“Could we use him as bait? Move him to a deserted patch of desert, and, once they arrive, we yank him out and blow the place up?” Xander asked.

Chuck grimaced. “He wasn’t happy with that plan when we thought we were just dealing with poachers.”

“We can be quite convincing,” Xander said. His grin was rather grim, Chuck noticed. Quite different from his usual attitude.

“Well…” Chuck started to say, but Casey interrupted him, staring at his phone. Which was beeping.

“Someone’s breaking into the Buy More!”

“Oh!” Caridad sounded positively ecstatic. “I get to use the potions!” She pushed Xander away, none too gentle, and started to collect the vials he had stashed under the counter.

“We don’t know if they are slime constructs,” Sarah pointed out.

“Slimerminators? S-1000?” Xander frowned. “No, that sounds lame.”

“Well, I’ll know soon enough,” Caridad said, grabbing the suitcase with the rest of the vials. “I just have to get close enough to sense them.”

“Potions?” Buffy looked confused.

“Some experimental concoctions I made,” Phil explained. “We hope they will affect the constructs.”

“Oh!” The Slayer perked up. “Gimme!”

“What? No! They’re mine!”

“Come on! Share!

“It would be wise to spread them out. Putting all eggs into one basket is often a foolish strategy,” Phil added.

“But… I trained for this!” Caridad pouted. Chuck caught her glance towards the storage room where Casey had disappeared down to The Castle.

Chuck suppressed a sigh. She wanted to impress the agent even though they had to stop an apocalypse. Slayers!

*****

“Two men. They just opened the emergency exit at the north side,” Sarah announced, one hand on her ear. Casey must have told her, Chuck realised.

“On it!” Caridad took off at once. Buffy and Faith exchanged a glance, then followed her.

“Who wants to bet they want to check for themselves if the slime golems are really as tough as the reports claimed?” Xander asked.

“No bet, buster,” Willow replied. “They’ve been speculating on the flight. Just be glad they won’t try to drag one to Cleveland to see if the active Hellmouth affects the constructs.”

Phil looked alarmed at that while Dawn sighed. “Typical.”

“Let’s hope that they stop to check before they accidentally attack two normal burglars,” Willow said.

“What if it’s a trap?” Sarah pointed out. “If more are waiting in ambush, this could be very dangerous. Caridad had considerable trouble with just one of them.”

“It’s Buffy and Faith,” Xander replied. “But noted. Let’s join them, just in case.” Raised his voice a little, he added: “But keep an eye open for other intruders, and inform us at once, alright, Agent Casey?” He grabbed the gym bag he had brought with them and opened it. “Who wants a shiny axe?”

Dawn grabbed a short sword even as she announced that she’d stay in the store. Willow declined, but Chuck grabbed one. As did Morgan. Chuck wasn’t the best with axes, but then, that went for most melee weapons, and an axe would be most effective against a slime construct. He didn’t comment on the guns he saw inside the bag, but Xander would need diplomatic immunity if a cop ever got ahold of it.

“I left the flamethrower in the car,” Xander said, chuckling, as they left the Wienerlicious. “Didn’t think you’d appreciate me burning down the store.”

Chuck nodded, then caught Sarah’s glance. Had she thought Xander would be kidding about this? He tried to convey that Xander was serious with a nod before they crossed the parking lot and reached the Buy More, but wasn’t sure if he managed it.

*****

A flamethrower. Despite the fact that they were moving towards a fight, Sarah had to snort. Casey would want one as well, she just knew it. And it might be useful against vampires and other demons. As long as you didn’t care about collateral damage. And about carrying a tank of fuel into battle on your back. She couldn’t imagine trying to fight with that weighing you down.

They heard the Slayers before they saw them. 

“Oh… that must have hurt. No? You’re tougher than you look.”

“Hold still you damn shell!”

“You don’t know when to quit, do you?”

“B! Don’t kill steal!”

“I’m not! He walked into my swing.”

“Yeah, right!”

Despite the noise of breaking furniture - not that Sarah cared about the Buy More stock - the Slayers sounded as if they had the situation under control.

For a certain definition of the word, Sarah amended her thoughts as they rounded the last corner. The Slayers definitely didn’t mind collateral damage - they were fighting among the remains of two pallets of what looked like gaming consoles. She heard Chuck gasp next to her and briefly wondered if he was appalled at the destruction of the store’s stock or the loss of gaming consoles specifically.

But Summers and Lehane were almost casually knocking around two stumbling figures, trading barbs and quips - with each other; the constructs didn’t talk - while Caridad apparently was diligently testing the various vials Brown-Smythe had prepared.

With decent success, Sarah noticed - one of the constructs looked half-melted. But it was still moving, unimpeded despite the damage, crushing a wooden crate where Summers had been a fraction of a second before.

The Slayer had already slid around the thing. A kick sent it through the crate’s remains, into the wall behind it, with enough force to crack concrete.

“Big Mike won’t like that,” Chuck mumbled.

“He doesn’t like anything or anyone!” Caridad exclaimed. “Heads up!” She threw a vial that broke against the back of the construct fighting Lehane, and the blue liquid splashed over it without any visible effect.

“He would like getting his entire store covered in slime even less, I bet,” Summers said, dodging a few flailing limbs.

“I don’t know, B. Some people really like such a thing,” Lehane replied. “Drusilla cheated on Spike with a slime demon, didn’t she?”

“Ew!” Summers made a face and glared at the other Slayer, hands on her hips and seemingly ignoring the slime construct coming at her from behind. Sarah was about to yell at her, but Summers launched a mule kick without looking that sent the slime golem crashing into the next wall.

And Lehane did the same with her opponent, using a roundhouse kick. “Don’t knock it until you tried it!”

“Ew!”

Sarah had thought Caridad was supernaturally gifted, but those two made the other Slayer look weak.

And where did that leave her?

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 12th, 2007**

Chuck watched, axe in hand, as Buffy and Faith fought. Buffy danced around her enemy, reducing the thing to broken and dissolving parts while it flailed and tried to hit her without success. She also kept up the banter, despite the construct never answering or reacting in any way to it. Faith was more brutal, standing her ground more and blocking blows with guiding parries than weaving around them and lashing out with jabs and kicks that shattered limbs and other body parts.

The two were grinding down the slime golems like Caridad had done so with the first inside the Buy More, but they made it look easy. And they didn’t get hit at all. 

He was feeling more than a little superfluous. A feeling Caridad probably shared, as a glance towards the resident Slayer told him - she was standing there, frowning at her empty suitcase, and fiddling with a notebook.

Or, he thought as he saw her writing into the notebook, she’s trying to work out and remember which concoction worked best on the things. Slayers weren’t the best at paying attention to experiments, as Buffy had proven several times in Chemistry.

They weren’t the best at avoiding collateral damage, either. He winced as he tallied the cost of an entire shipment of Playstation 3s. Some of the consoles might have survived the fight, but all of them would have to be checked for damages. Big Mike wouldn’t like this. Especially without an obvious culprit to blame and bill for, and their insurance would probably demand a police report at least. Which meant more work as they’d have to clean up the location of all slime parts without making it look like they did. The last thing the store needed - well, the second to last thing, seeing as getting buried in slime was worse - would be a police investigation for attempted insurance fraud.

“Hah! Beat ya, B!” Faith announced as she held up the constructs ‘core’ - it was, as far as Chuck understood, the anchor for the spells holding the thing together and animating it, but any gamer would know that was called a ‘core’.

“No fair! I was dragging things out so we could gather data!” Buffy complained as she pouted at the twitching remains of her own opponent.

“C’s been done with her experiment for some time, B!”

“She doesn’t look done!”

“That’s ‘cause she’s writing the report, but the actual experiment’s been done for some time.”

“That doesn’t count! She might have needed a second look!”

“Two intruders neutralised,” Chuck heard Sarah speak into a small microphone.

“Oh! Do we get to visit the underground spy lair now?” Buffy asked as she grabbed a core of her own.

“It’s a spy base,” Caridad corrected her.

“It’s hidden below a harmless-looking restaurant and used to spy on innocent people. That makes it a lair!” Buffy insisted.

“It’s also top secret,” Sarah added with a glare at Caridad.

“We’ve got top-secret security clearances,” Xander replied. “Well, they were meant to cover up the DRI without making the bureaucrats tie themselves into knots about us knowing, but a CIA base isn’t exactly in the same league as the DRI base was.”

But the Intersect was, Chuck knew. And he was sure that Xander and the rest of the Scoobies knew about it as well.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 12th, 2007**

“The blue vials seemed to work best,” Caridad reported a few minutes later, back in the Wienerlicious. “They melted the most.”

“Xavius’s attempt at creating a universal solvent? Thank you, dear, that will greatly simplify my work,” Phil replied with a smile.

As the Slayer beamed at the praise, Chuck caught Buffy and Faith exchanging wry glances at the scene. What was that about?

Before he could find an answer, or at least a hypothesis, Xander spoke up. “So… with a second attack on the store, it seems clear that the Buy More is the focus of the enemy’s attention. Which means we’ll need to have a base on-site so we can react quickly to further intrusions or attacks.”

Chuck understood what he meant. As did Sarah, of course. “You want to use our base?” she said in a rather frosty tone.

“Well, if there’s already a hidden spy base,” Xander said, ignoring Buffy’s ‘lair!’, “which has feeds from all those cameras you hid around the place…” He shrugged. “We could set up shop in the Buy More store, I guess, but we’d have to set up surveillance of our own.”

“The only suitable location would be the catacombs,” Morgan said. “Big Mike’s been cracking down on our Home Entertainment Display Room Parties, and our extended break rooms. And we aren't allowed to hire temps without his approval any more since he fired Caridad.”

“Which was totally not my fault!” Caridad blurted out. “That construct attacked me!”

“And we’d have to come and go through the store, which would present a possible danger,” Dawn added.

It sounded quite convincing to Chuck. Logical, too. Which, of course, didn’t mean the CIA would see it the same way. Chuck had the distinct feeling that the General wouldn’t, in fact. But did she have to know about it?

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, December 12th, 2007**

This was the nail in her career’s coffin. Sarah was well aware of that. Of course, officially, she was following orders. She was duty-bound to help defend the USA, and this apocalypse certainly qualified as a massive threat to the country, even without knowing all the details of the danger.

She was also bound not to reveal secrets to people without the needed clearance, and the Council’s secrets certainly fell into that category, even though they weren’t exactly the USA’s secrets.

But unofficially, she was breaking every rule and regulation of the CIA, especially the unwritten ones. You didn’t let a - technically or not - foreign strike team into your base without orders from your superiors. Certainly not people you had been ‘encouraged’ to investigate. The director might have understood, but General Beckman? The woman was NSA to begin with, not CIA, and Sarah had no leverage with her.

“Guys! Guys! Remember: You can’t use the briefing room, in case the general calls. She can’t know you’re here!”

She gently shook her head. Chuck meant well, but he was too naive. This would never work.

“Oh, look, they have machine guns!”

“Dibs on the M2!”

“They don’t have an M2, B.”

“Why not? It’s a great weapon. And it actually hurts some of the tougher demons, unlike the pea shooters here!”

“Because they are spies and not the Armored Cavalry. Besides, they have LAWs.”

“Oh, I bet they’d destroy a slime-thingie in one shot! It worked on the Judge, didn’t it? Can you get us those, Xander?”

“They’re under biometrical lock and key, Buffy.”

And thank God for that, Sarah thought. The last thing she needed was the Scoobies using CIA-issued anti-tank weapons in a mall.

“Willow can crack that, right?”

“I’m not going to, Buffy! That would be rude.”

“But you can do it, can’t you?”

“Well, of course! The encryption isn’t exactly complicated. But I wouldn’t do that unless it were an emergency.”

“What? It took me more than ten minutes to crack such a lock when I tried it. What are you using?” Chuck exclaimed.

Sarah clenched her teeth. She should never have let Chuck talk her into this. And she had to talk to him about hacking their own base.

“Heh, just tell yourself that having them set up their own base, unsupervised, would be worse.”

She turned to glance at Casey, who looked far too relaxed in the face of this invasion. “If Beckman hears about this, we’re done for.”

He shrugged. “I’ve already been on borrowed time ever since I was shown that vampire. This is just more of the same.” At her raised eyebrows, he added: “Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made. If you were a soldier, you might understand that.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She knew better than him about sacrifices - she had sacrificed her former life for the agency. “I understand enough,” she told him, then pointedly glanced at Lehane and Caridad.

She didn’t quite smile at his growl.

*****

Perhaps inviting the Scoobies to The Castle hadn’t been a good idea. Watching them, Chuck was having second thoughts. He hadn’t expected them to be as professional as Sarah and Casey, not outside combat, at least, but to see them treat the armoury as if it were a display in a candy store was more than a little disconcerting.

Seeing Casey not froth at the mouth at the sight, though, was even worse. “Uh,” Chuck spoke up, “shouldn’t we plan how to proceed from here?”

“We’ve got a plan,” Xander said, looking up from where he was apparently cleaning a bundle of rifles. “Caridad stays in the store during the day, standard guard rotations after work.”

“One Slayer’s ready at all times,” Buffy added - without taking her eyes off the armoury locker. “Will casts a few spells to cover the area, and we watch TV while we wait for the bad guys to make a move so we can find and crush them. Simple!”

“Not even Buffy could mess this plan up,” Dawn said.

“Hey!”

Chuck saw Dawn suddenly frown. “On second thought, forget what I said.”

“Thank you.”

Dawn ignored Buffy’s exclamation. “I’m certain that she actually could mess this up. Easily - she’s gifted that way.”

“Hey!”

“You’d know her best, little D.”

Yes, Chuck thought with a glance at Sarah, who hadn’t stopped frowning for some time, this hadn’t been one of his best ideas.

Probably still better than his fifteenth birthday LAN party, though.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 12th, 2007**

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” Chuck said, in the bed.

“You said that already,” Sarah replied - though without looking at him, he noticed - as she slipped into her sleepwear in front of the dresser. Which was kind of distracting, especially thanks to the mirror mounted there.

“It bears repeating?” He forced himself to smile. “In my defence, they are much more professional when things turn really dangerous.” He shrugged. “They just like to goof around to unwind.” That’s what Xander had told him last time.

“It’s an act, then?” She slid into bed next to him.

Chuck certainly hoped so as he nodded. “They probably want to provoke you, too. You know, the more you react, the more they act up.”

“Like children.”

“Uh…” His smile slipped. “Very experienced, very dangerous children. Most of them have been fighting demons for ten years.” He thought for a moment. “Just imagine Casey with a sense of humour, and instead of hating communists, it’s demons.”

“That’s… actually terrifying,” she said.

“They’re on our side,” he replied.

“So’s Casey.”

“Touché.” He winced. Casey was terrifying and - nominally - on their side, too. “I guess I’m biased - I still see high schoolers when I think about them. Teenagers messing around, talking shit, doing stupid things…” And hunting demons and protecting an entire town run by an evil sorcerer bent on becoming a greater demon.

“Funny. I see teenagers too, when I think about them.”

Chuck wasn’t sure if he could disagree. Or what that said about the Scoobies.

On the other hand, Ellie had complained about him not growing up quite often. At least until he had started going out with Sarah.

Chuck didn’t know what that said about him. Or he didn’t want to know.

*****


	8. The Season Part 3

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 13th, 2007**

Dawn was occupying a table - one of the few - in Wienerlicious when Chuck entered for his usual morning break. She was almost hidden behind a wall of old books - antiques, as far as Chuck could tell. Or very good facsimiles. But why would Dawn lug around a facsimile of an old book weighing a ton, if it was a modern reprint?

“Yes?”

Oh. He must have been staring at her, and she had noticed. “Uh, nothing. Just wondering about the books.” He gestured at the stack.

“I’m not going to spill anything on them,” she replied, sounding more than a little annoyed. “Unlike others, I’m perfectly capable of not ruining priceless tomes within ten yards of sodas and greasy snacks.” And her expression seemed to promise doom for anyone nearby who didn’t share that capability. “I just like being above ground, instead of hiding in a bunker. This isn’t a café in London, but it’ll do for studying. If we’re in California, I want to see the sun!”

“Uh… I wasn’t actually worried about the books,” Chuck was quick to clarify. “I was wondering if those are originals.”

“Originals? No.” She shook her head. “Those are copies.”

“Ah.” Chuck smiled, relieved that he didn’t have to worry about damaging valuable tomes. Until she went on.

“The originals were in Sumeric, and long since turned to dust. Those are copies made by monks in the early medieval period.”

Chuck forced himself to smile. He was no expert, but such ‘copies’ would still cost a fortune. He gave the table a wide berth as he walked to the counter, where Sarah was waiting. He couldn’t spot Caridad, though.

Before he could ask, Sarah told him. “She’s in The Castle.”

“Ah. Casey?” The agent was officially sick so he could keep an eye on the Scoobies in the base.

Sarah nodded. “And a few very colourful threats from Dr. Summers. Apparently, she’s got experience with Slayers and valuable books.”

“Ah.” Chuck chuckled. “I remember Giles’s blowing his top once when Buffy damaged a book - we heard him in the hallway. He was posing as our high school librarian,” he added.

“Some people really love books,” she said.

“And some people are loud,” Dawn commented from her table. “Besides, books can save lives. How can you stop an apocalypse if you don’t know anything about it?”

“Uh…” Chuck didn’t think Dawn would like to hear Xander’s quote about hitting stuff with enough force or explosives would generally do the job. And she was, of course, correct - you needed to know what or whom you had to hit. “So, found anything?”

She scowled. “Not much. Something about ‘Royal Slime’ - no jokes about the British Royalty, please.”

“Of course not,” Chuck said. Phil was a loyal subject of the Queen, as he had impressed upon Morgan when Chuck’s friend had joked about a particularly tasteless piece of gossip concerning the royal family.

“So… apparently, those are slime demons directly descending from the Slime Lord, and their blood is supposed to be ‘powerful’. Sort of like Slayer blood, but for demons,” Dawn went on.

“Jeff’s slime royalty?” Chuck blinked.

“Perhaps. It would explain why they are so focused on him. Or they think he’s royalty.”

“He would deserve the title ‘King of Slimes’,” Sarah said, holding out a coke for Chuck.

Dawn winced. “Creepy?”

“Very creepy.” Sarah shook her head. “Although his friend is almost as creepy, and without any demon ancestry.”

“Oh. That kind of creepy.” Dawn made a face. “Just wait until he tries it on Buffy or Faith. They’ll stomp him flat.”

“I don’t think he will,” Chuck replied. “He’s scared of Slayers.”

“Would killing him foil the enemy’s plans?” Sarah sounded a little too interested in Chuck’s opinion. He didn’t think she wanted to kill Jeff, but if she thought it would save the city…

“We can’t tell. Sometimes, the chosen sacrifice has to be killed in a specific way or ritual. Sometimes, they just have to be killed.” Dawn was rubbing her stomach, Chuck noticed, and she was flinching a little.

Not a good subject, then, he guessed. But they had to ask - the city’s fate might depend on it. He cleared his throat. “So, all’s quiet on the Buy More front, then?”

Dawn looked at him. “Chuck!”

“What?”

“You don’t do that! It’s almost as bad as using the w-word!”

“The ‘w-word’?”

“Wishing for something,” Chuck explained. “Don’t do it. Some demons might be listening.”

Dawn looked tense, then, after a moment, relaxed. “False alert, I think.”

A moment later, Caridad rushed out of the storage room that concealed the stairs to The Castle. “Multiple demons incoming!”

The Slayer was carrying a satchel bag - presumably with more of the tested concoctions. Chuck didn’t know if Phil had managed to make more of them in the meantime. Unless…

Caridad rushed past him, and Chuck turned to Sarah. “She wouldn’t have taken grenades from the armoury, would she?”

“They didn’t let us!” Buffy answered, almost bowling him over as she and Faith dashed out of the store in… yoga pants, a tank top and trainers? He blinked, then remembered the schedule. Both would have been asleep at this time of the morning. That must be the reason Caridad had beaten them out of The Castle.

“Come!” Sarah snapped, headed towards the stairs leading to the base. “Now it’s safe to go down.”

Chuck nodded. Hopefully, she thought that he had been waiting for the Slayers to leave before heading down himself, instead of wondering what to do.

When they reached The Castle, Xander and Willow were just getting ready to leave. “Demons shouldn’t be attacking so early in the morning,” Xander complained as he stuffed a carbine and axe into a sports bag and headed past them.

“It’s not exactly early,” Sarah said - to Xander’s back.

“For us, it is,” Willow answered, hurrying after Xander. 

“Sorry!” Chuck heard her yell a moment later, followed by Dawn stumbling out of the staircase, almost dropping her precious stack of books.

“Uh… sorry?” Chuck smiled at her - he had completely forgotten to help her.

She huffed and went to put the books down on the planning table. “One demon attack and everyone goes crazy.”

“We’ve got multiple demon attacks in progress,” Casey corrected her. He was sitting at the controls for the surveillance cameras. “Half a dozen weirdos - all with the same face - are in the back, trying to get in through the loading ramp. Summer and Lehane are headed there. One is in the Buy More itself - knocked a security guard around. Caridad engaged it already, and Grimes is evacuating the customers. Rosenberg and Harris will be dealing with the snake monster creeping through the bushes at the east side.”

Snake monster? Chuck took a closer look. He didn’t recognise the demon species, but it looked quite dangerous. Not as dangerous as the Mayor had been, but Chuck still shuddered at the memory. He shook his head. He couldn’t space out. Not now. “We’ll have to evacuate the entire store.” 

“Already on it - gas leak in the food court.” Casey bared his teeth in a grin. “Might remove some competition for you, Walker, if the Buy More decides to sue them after this.”

“What?” Chuck shook his head. “It’s not their fault that demons are attacking.”

“I tried their burgers, They deserve worse than this.”

Chuck hoped that Casey was joking. “So… what do we do?”

“We’re command and control, and reserves,” the agent answered.

“It’s not as if we’re needed, not with Buffy, Faith and Willow on the job,” Dawn said.

“More demons in the back,” Sarah said, pointing at the screen showing the loading ramp.

Chuck glanced at it. Indeed, three more figures were rushing towards Faith. And there were now what looked like three polgara demons supporting the snake. Out in the open? At this time of the day? “Why are they attacking openly?”

“They aren’t,” Sarah answered. “All the ones in the open look human. Or close enough. And the rest are hiding.”

That made sense. But something kept niggling at Chuck. Something wasn’t right. People were streaming out of the store now, fortunately away from the fighting.

“Either some twins decided to ignore the evacuation orders and try to snap up some special deals, or there are two constructs headed towards Caridad,” Casey said, “Caridad, two more incoming,” he added into the microphone.

That would be tight, Chuck knew. Even with the vials prepared by Phil, three constructs would be too much for Caridad. If Buffy and Faith finished their enemies quickly… He blinked. “It’s a diversion!” he said, then yelled it. “It’s a diversion.”

“What?” Casey glared at him, then nodded. “That makes sense. Tie us up and…”

“...go in through the tunnels,” Sarah finished.

“It’s a diversion,” Casey told the Scoobies.

“What?”

“We can’t leave - the demons will go after the shoppers.”

Which meant it was up to them - Sarah, Casey and Chuck - to stop the main attack.

Great.

Casey was at the armoury in seconds, entering the codes while Sarah took over communications. “We’re moving to the tunnels,” she told the Scoobies.

“We'll reinforce you as soon… watch out!”

That was Xander, cut off mid-sentence. Why was Willow having trouble dealing with the demons there?

“Bit busy here.”

Buffy.

“Not for long.”

Faith.

Caridad was cursing - she had just been thrown through a shelf, Chuck saw on the screen. One construct had been melted, but another was giving the Slayer a fight, and the third was chasing Morgan through the kitchen appliances aisle.

“Come on, Bartowski!”

“Chuck!”

Chuck ran after Sarah and Casey, who was lugging a pack presumably filled with weapons, while Dawn slid into the seat the NSA agent had vacated. “Lock up behind us!” he yelled at her - that would keep her safe. “Where are we going?” Chuck managed to ask while catching up. 

“Northern Sewer entrance,” Casey barked, taking a shortcut through the bushes.

“That’s…” Chuck broke off. It was actually the closest entrance to Jeff’s lair. And Chuck needed his breath to keep running. But it was also the nastiest entrance to the tunnels. Apart from the one in the half-submerged storm drains filled with all kinds of refuse, some poisonous or even magical - residue from Jeff and Lester’s experiments. 

Casey had removed the lid on the shaft already when Chuck turned the last corner, a few bits of foliage stuck to his shirt. The agent was pulling on night vision goggles and had a rifle hanging from a sling at his side - a shotgun, Chuck realised. He knew the design from Medal of Honour. And Sarah was pulling out a nasty sword from the pack that Chuck remembered from Casey’s wall. Not the cavalry sword, though. She, too, had goggles strapped to her head already. 

Casey had the cavalry sword, Chuck saw when the agent jumped down the shaft. As did Sarah. Chuck wasn’t a trained spy, nor a commando, so he grabbed a set of goggles and an axe for himself - Sarah must have taken them along for him - and scrambled down the ladder instead. “Wee goin’ down!” he reported before he lost contact with Dawn, his pronunciation slightly hampered by the fact that he was holding on to the strap of the goggles with his teeth. And not the most promising wording, either, he realised after the fact.

He reached the bottom, ruining his trainers when he landed in something squishy and smelly, and saw Casey and Sarah were already moving away. “Wait!” he blurted out. “Wait!”

“Keep up, Bartowski,” Casey snapped without even turning his head.

“We need to watch out for Jeff’s slime traps,” Chuck yelled. “He had a few days to expand since the last check.” In hindsight, telling Jeff that the Scoobies were coming hadn’t been a good idea. That Lester claimed to have developed a phobia of narrow tunnels and refused to enter the catacombs didn’t help, of course.

“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Bartowski!”

For a moment, Chuck hoped that Casey would stumble into a slime trap. Then he told himself that that would mean he and Sarah would be on their own. It would still be nice to see Casey encased in slime, though.

“The traps should slow the enemy down as well,” Sarah pointed out as they advanced - not at a run, not any more, thank God - and skirted around a slime trap on the ground.

“Unless they are immune to the slime,” Chuck replied.

“Immune?”

“They could be slime demons themselves. It just occurred to me,” Chuck explained.

“Great. That idiot is making things worse even now,” Casey growled.

Chuck hoped that he was talking about Jeff.

Five minutes later, they were close to Jeff’s lair - Chuck had taken care to memorise the layout after his and Lester’s ill-fated trip. Somewhat, at least - he should be able to find a way out through the larger tunnels. The night vision goggles helped, of course - with just some stray light, the tunnels looked as if they were a maze on the ground, at noon. If the sun were green.

Another slime trap. They went around it, hugging the wall. Chuck almost scrapped off his goggles when he forgot to take their size into account - games didn’t teach you that - but managed not to hold up the others for too long. No longer than two more biting remarks from Casey, at least.

It was a good thing that Jeff hadn’t thought of placing traps on the walls for those who spotted the ones on the ground. Jeff obviously had never played D&D with Andrew. 

They were just another tunnel - and probably two traps - from the lair when Chuck heard the chanting. He almost stumbled, then picked up the pace. “We need to hurry! Chanting’s not good. Chanting’s never of the good!” He hadn’t actually seen rituals before, but he had heard enough about them to know that - the Scoobies had impressed the basic rules on everyone, and ‘Chanting bad’ was one of the ground rules.

“Chuck!” Sarah hissed, and his attempt to push past her was stopped with a hand on his chest. Or solar plexus. 

“Oof.”

“Don’t blindly rush in!” Casey snapped.

“But if they’re chanting, they’ve started the ritual. We might be too late if we don’t hurry!”

"They might have guards,” Sarah said.

Damn. He clenched his teeth, but she was correct, and as they approached - a little more hurried, but not rushing - Chuck envisioned being caught by waves of slime in these tunnels, trapped and choking to death - or being slowly digested like in the Sarlacc…

Oh, my God! That was a thought Chuck didn’t want. But now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. That kind of thing would fit major demons perfectly. Trap your prey, and slowly digest them alive over the course of a thousand years… He had visions of a giant gelatinous cube covering parts of Los Angeles as he followed Sarah and Casey.

And he wondered if George Lucas knew about the supernatural. All those aliens...

They were close to the large room where Jeff had set up shop, and even a deaf person would have heard the chanting now - or felt the vibrations, at least. Chuck wasn’t deaf. But, he realised when he saw Casey pull out a grenade, he might be deaf in a few seconds.

“Fire in the hole!”

Chuck clamped his hands over his head, opened his mouth and dropped into a crouch. A moment later, he felt as if he had been punched in the chest and choked a little on the dust that had been thrown up. “What the…”

But the two spies had already turned the corner, and he heard gunshots - loud gunshots. He picked up his axe and ran after them.

There was a construct on the ground, stuck to it - to a slime pool of Jeff’s. And Casey and Sarah were busy hacking off the thing’s flailing limbs so they could pass without getting bludgeoned or grabbed. The thing wasn’t making any sound, but its mouth looked as if it were silently screaming.

Chuck shuddered as he went to join the two agents. “Let me - I’ve got an axe,” he said. “It’s better for chopping,” he added when Casey glared at him. Well, he couldn’t see the man’s eyes through the goggles, but he was sure Casey was glaring at him.

And the agent took his axe!

Chuck got it back after a disturbingly enthusiastic display of hacking and chopping and had to hold it away from him to avoid the slime dropping from the axe head.

They pushed on - the lair was just around the next corner - but as they turned it, they came face to face with more constructs. Casey jumped back, almost bowling over Chuck, and Sarah ducked just in time to avoid a swing that could throw a Slayer a few yards.

The grenade must have alerted them, Chuck realised as he fell back. And now they were blocking them from… His eyes widened. “Fall back!” he yelled. “We can’t break through!”

“We have to!” Casey yelled, grabbing another grenade. He was moving back, but probably just to gain enough distance to safely use the thing.

“Not here!” Chuck replied, scrambling back himself - the tunnel wasn’t wide enough for three people, and he was the weakest fighter here.

Sarah, of course, got it. “Casey, fall back!” she snapped. “Let them chase us. Chuck, lead the way.”

Casey grunted, throwing his grenade, which Chuck took as a cue to turn and run.

As he jumped over the twitching torso left of the stuck construct, he really hoped that he correctly remembered the alternate route to Jeff’s lair.

*****

“Fire in the Hole!”

Sarah quickly slapped her hands over her ears when she heard Casey’s yell - even with plugs, a grenade going off was too loud in the tunnels. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty… The grenade went off, and she felt the pressure from the shockwave even around a corner.

She slid around the bend to check - three constructs were down on the ground, one missing an arm, but they were getting up, and more were behind them. Fortunately, they weren’t quite as fast as Sarah and Casey. 

Chuck on the other hand… “*Get clear!” she yelled, then raised the LAW to her shoulders and fired it. The construct exploded, and the blast tore through one behind it. She dashed back at once. “Go!” she yelled.

“I’m starting to run out of grenades,” Casey announced.

“And that was our last M72,” Sarah said - they would have to buy more when they restocked the armoury. And hope they found a good explanation for using all rocket launchers had been available.

“We’re almost there,” Chuck replied. He sounded confident. Also stressed and nervous, of course.

“Really?” Casey sounded doubtful.

“Yes. A few more turns, then we enter the other main tunnel.”

“I’ll rig this tunnel to collapse, then.”

“What?”

“We can’t let them come after us,” Sarah told Chuck as she pulled him along. He was doing better than he would have a month ago, and he wasn’t out of shape, but he couldn’t keep this chase up as long as Sarah and Casey could.

“How long do you need?” she asked.

“Half a minute,” Casey replied, handing her a grenade.

She nodded in reply, then sent Chuck ahead and dropped in a crouch at the next corner, waiting for the constructs to arrive. There! 

“Fire in the hole!”

This time, she didn’t wait - she ran. Casey would cut things close. Very close.

Almost too close - as soon as she reached the alcove Casey and Chuck were in, he detonated the charges he had placed. Sarah threw herself into the alcove, into Casey, almost toppling him over, a moment before Chuck’s yelling was drowned out by the blast, and the pressure wave filled the tunnel.

She was pushed against Casey with enough force to push the breath out of her lungs and by the time the dust cloud had settled enough to safely take a breath, her chest felt on fire. But Casey was chuckling. “Perfect ambush. Now let’s stop a ritual, blow some cultists to kingdom come, and go celebrate.” He quickly fell into a trot, and Sarah and Chuck followed him.

“We don’t have a LAW left, do we?” Chuck asked.

“No,” Sarah replied. He should have known that.

“Damn.”

They started to hear the chanting again, and another two slime traps later, they reached the large room. Sarah could see a dozen figures in the centre surrounding an… altar? Yes. And on it, bound by thick chains, was Jeff in half-slime form. She checked herself before she started for them. “Left,” she said, moving up next to Casey.

“Right,” he confirmed.

Then they slid around the corner, leading with their blades - no constructs waiting in ambush.

“Ceiling clear,” Chuck added.

The figures in the centre hadn’t reacted. Either they hadn’t noticed them, too busy with their ritual - or they couldn’t react without wrecking the ritual…

“Can we shoot them without causing more problems?” Casey growled.

“Uh…” Chuck cleared his throat. “Derailing a summoning could cause a big explosion. That was what almost happened at my graduation. But yes, unless Jeff gets killed, the summoning should be foiled.”

Casey was already shooting when Sarah aimed her gun, but neither of them hit anything.

“It’s a barrier!” Chuck said.

Magic. Sarah clenched her teeth. “How do we get through it?”

“We might be able to pass through if we’re moving slowly,” Chuck replied.

They moved forward - no more need to try and stay hidden. Casey charged but slammed into the barrier, shoulder first. He stumbled a few steps back, rubbing his shoulder. “No more advice from a tv series,” he barked.

“Uh…” Chuck grimaced. “It could have worked. I think.”

“Stop thinking and give us a solution that works!” Casey spat.

“Uh… if it’s a wall and not a dome, we could…”

Sarah lobbed a stone up. It cleared the line where the bullets had been stopped - they had fallen to the ground, she now saw - but then bounced off the barrier when it was right over the altar. “It’s a dome,” she said.

“Burrowing?”

Casey kicked at the ground. “That would take too long. Even with explosives. But we could set up a charge that buries them, then burns away the oxygen.”

“That would kill Jeff!” Chuck blurted out.

“Yes,” Casey replied, baring his teeth. “As will they, if we don’t stop them. Just with more collateral damage.”

“But if Jeff dies on the altar, it might complete the ritual!” Chuck retorted.

“Let’s save it as a last resort,” Sarah cut in. “Alternatives?”

“Can’t go through, can’t go over, can’t go under…” Chuck shook his head. “I’m no wizard; I don’t know how to break through such a barrier. If it’s part of the ritual, it won’t end until the ritual ends…”

“Guess it’s gonna be Plan Cave-in,” Casey said, pulling out more C-4.

“We can’t…” Chuck said. 

Sarah placed a hand on his shoulder and gently squeezed, shaking her head. They had no choice.

“But…”

Casey was already placing charges at the walls.

“But Jeff… Wait! Wait!”

“Chuck…” She reached out to him.

“No, no!” He shook his head again. “Look! The slime’s passing through!” He pointed at the ground where, Sarah noticed, a thin stream of slime - from Jeff - was flowing through the barrier.

And, she saw when she crouched next to it, it was carrying small pebbles with it.

“If we’re covered in slime, we can pass through!” Chuck said, smiling.

“And where do we get enough slime that’s not knocking us out or sticking us to the ground?” Casey asked.

“We don’t need too much!” Chuck yelled, already sprinting towards the tunnel where they had destroyed the first constructs. “Just enough to cover a barrel!”

Sarah looked at Casey. 

The NSA Agent was grinning. “Sometimes, even Bartowski has a good idea.”

Chuck returned with a rotten bucket he had grabbed on the way, carrying about half a gallon of sticky slime. “Will that be enough?”

Casey grunted. “We’ll see.”

“So, we just stick the muzzle into it…”

“No!” the man barked before Sarah could say it. “That would clog up the barrel.” He pulled out a condom. “Always be prepared!”

And while Casey pulled the rubber over the muzzle of his gun, Chuck stepped closer to Sarah and whispered. “I can’t help thinking that this is deeply symbolic.”

Sarah couldn’t keep from giggling.

*****

Chuck knew he shouldn’t laugh - or giggle - but he couldn’t help it. They were next to a barrier, behind which some cultists - possibly human, possibly demons, the cloaked robes could hide anything roughly human-shaped - were about to sacrifice a co-worker of his and bring ruin upon Los Angeles, and now a condom was being used to stop them in a completely suggestive-symbolic way.

Casey’s glare promised retribution, but not even that could stop Chuck's involuntarily laughter.

However, the sight of Casey pushing the slime- and condom covered muzzle through the barrier, then blowing the brains out of the closest cultist could and did. And, incidentally, revealed that the cultists were at least human enough to need their brains and to be hurt by bullets.

Some of them, in any case, Chuck amended his thoughts as Casey continued to mow down cultist after cultist. It seemed they couldn’t move while doing the ritual - another question answered. And as they fell, they tended to squish the candles lining their circle, which should also help with disrupting the ritual.

“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” Casey commented with a fierce and disturbing grin.

“Does anyone actually do that?” Chuck asked. “I mean, wouldn’t shooting the fish ruin the meat? It would be better to grab them, wouldn’t it?” Casey ignored him as he reloaded, and Sarah gave him a look. “Sorry,” Chuck said. “Just a thought that came to mind.” 

The last cultist fell, bleeding, among the rest, courtesy of a short burst from Casey’s carbine.

Chuck let out a breath he hadn’t noticed holding. They had done it! They had saved the Buy More! And probably Los Angeles! And they had saved Jeff. The guy was likely traumatised for life, but he was alive. And he should have gotten therapy already, anyway. So, now, all that was left to do was...

“Shouldn’t the barrier vanish now?” Casey growled.

“Uh…” Chuck looked at Casey. The gun was still stuck in the barrier. That wasn’t a good sign. Not at all. “Yes. Yes, it should,” Chuck told the agent. “If the ritual is still going…”

Casey quickly started putting more bullets into the bodies on the ground. Into their heads, Chuck noticed, wincing at the gore.

“The one there! He’s moving!” Sarah suddenly yelled, pointing at a cultist near the altar.

She was right - that guy was still alive. Wounded, but moving. Trying to get up. Trying to reach Jeff.

“Stubborn bastard!” Casey emptied his magazine into the man, and the cultist collapsed - one hand on the altar.

A _slimy_ hand, Chuck realised. “Uh… Guys…” 

Suddenly, a light appeared in the middle of the circle, quickly growing stronger. Strong enough for Chuck’s goggles to be overwhelmed, forcing him to pull them off and blink, briefly blinded.

He heard the splattering noise before his eyes readjusted, and his heart sank. It couldn’t be…

But he could see the slime splashing on the ground in the circle, falling down like a waterfall from a point in the air.

“They completed the ritual?” Sarah managed to say.

“It seems so,” Chuck replied. “Unless this is just some side effect.”

But the stream of slime was continuously growing.

“The barrier has vanished,” Casey informed them, falling back.

“Jeff! We need to get Jeff!” Chuck suddenly said. If the Lord of Slime arrived, and Jeff was still on the altar… He dashed forward, avoiding the growing puddle of slime on the ground. And hoping that the drops splattering over Jeff wouldn’t harm the man. Or Chuck.

Jeff was conscious, staring at him with wild eyes as he tried to speak through his gag. Chuck started to fiddle with the chains. Where was the padlock? There usually was a padlock, wasn’t it? Or another sort of lock. But where?

Then Sarah was next to him, crouching. And working on the padlock on the floor. And Casey, cursing, was holding a broken plank as an improvised umbrella, to keep them from getting covered with slime - the stream had grown even more now, and was already lapping against the altar on the other side.

“Done!” Sarah announced.

Casey all but ripped Jeff away from the altar, and they retreated as fast as they could, Chuck trying to unwrap the chains from Jeff - which was harder than he expected, with Casey carrying the half-demon.

And behind them, a veritable flood of slime was building up. They had failed. And they’d probably drown in slime before they could get out.

When they entered the tunnel they hadn’t blocked, Chuck glanced over his shoulder and froze for a moment. Something was moving in the centre. And a wall of slime was rushing towards them.

“Run!” he yelled. “Oh my God, run!” And he ran. Even though they couldn’t outrun the slime tsunami. Not at that speed. Any second now it would reach them, and smash them against the tunnel walls, drag them along, break and drown them… Any second…

He glanced over his shoulder again, almost against his will. The slime wall was now an actual wall, sealing the tunnel entrance. He blinked and stopped running.

“Chuck!” Sarah yelled, “Ru... What?”

“Another barrier,” Chuck said, staring. But who could’ve… Willow?

“How long will it hold?” Casey asked.

“I don’t know. If this is Willow…” Chuck trailed off. How long would a barrier cast by Willow last? She had managed to seal off the entire Wolfram and Hart holding in Los Angeles, back in 2004, containing whatever magic and portals the demons had prepared while Slayers killed the people and demons responsible, but she’d had help back then. And had looked like death warmed over afterwards.

“Comms are still not working,” Casey said. “We need to get a move on before that thing breaks down.”

Chuck looked at the man. “Yes, I… Jeff!”

Jeff was on the ground, groaning. Casey must have dropped him, Chuck realised, frowning at the agent.

“What? He can walk now, can’t he?”

Chuck swallowed his retort and bent down to help Jeff get the chains off. Casey hadn’t dropped Jeff until they had been safe, after all. Actions spoke louder than words.

“Hurry! I don’t like this,” the NSA agent added.

Of course he didn’t like it - he couldn’t shoot a wall of slime. Well, he could, but it wouldn’t do a thing. But with Sarah’s help, they soon had Jeff freed.

“Thank you! Thank you!” Jeff stammered, reaching out to hug Chuck. Which left him covered in slime. “They were trying to sacrifice me to summon the Lord of Slimes! You saved me!”

“We know that,” Casey replied. “They’re not doing any summoning any more. Or anything else.” He grinned.

Chuck tried to wipe his clothes and grimaced. Sarah wasn’t helping - well, there wasn’t much she could do, anyway. At least she wasn’t grinning. Much. “So,” he said, trying to create a diversion, “we really should start moving, before the barrier breaks down.”

“It won’t break down. Red’s on it.”

Chuck whirled around, almost braining Jeff with the handle of his axe when the half-demon tried to hide behind him.

Faith was standing there. Her clothes were sporting some tears - how her top was staying on, Chuck couldn’t tell - and she was covered in blood and some slime, but she was grinning. “Yo. We were just in time. Had to help out Caridad and Morgan, first, but they were on the way anyway. Red’s sealed the entire room.”

So it had been Willow. Good. “Uh… how long will it last?” Chuck asked, moving his upper torso in an attempt to shake off Jeff, whose hands seemed glued to his back.

“Long enough for us to find a way to banish old slimey back to slime hell,” Faith replied with a shrug. “At least that’s what she said.”

That sounded not as reassuring as Chuck had hoped. Apparently, what he had seen moving had been the Slime Lord.

*****

They found the rest of the Scoobies - well, Faith led them to them, navigating the tunnels as if she had spent days down there already - near the third entrance to the old still. Willow was in a lotus position, eyes closed, and facing the slightly glowing barrier in front of her.

“Uh…” Chuck started.

“She’s just reinforcing the spell,” Xander interrupted him. He didn’t look hurt, even though his clothes were covered in blood of various colours. “Once she’s done, it’ll hold for a few hours.”

“A few hours?” Casey took a step forward. “And then it breaks down?”

“Chill there, GI Joe!” Buffy said. “She’ll simply renew it then, no sweat.”

“That doesn’t sound like a long-term solution,” Sarah pointed out.

“That’s because it isn’t!” Buffy grinned, flashing her teeth. “And it doesn’t have to be one, either - it just has to last until we know how to banish Slimer back to his home.”

“And Giles and Dawn and the mini-Watchers back in London are already working on that, so it won’t be too long until we can finish this,” Xander said. He was smiling, he sounded confident and he had the experience.

But Chuck still worried. If too much pressure built up… he blinked. “Uh…”

"Yes?”

“Is the spell just covering the exits or the entire room?” Chuck asked. “Because if the pressure builds up too much, the rock could give way. And what if the Slime Lord does something?”

“She’s sealed the entire room,” Buffy said. She didn’t sound as confident as before, though. “But the spell will hold Lord the Slimy - it’s based on a summoning circle.”

“We’ll ask once she’s done here,” Xander added. “To be sure.”

“Where’s Caridad?” Casey suddenly asked.

“She’s back up in the store with Morgan to handle things,” Buffy replied. “Store got trashed, but both are OK.” She peered at Jeff, who was still trying to keep Chuck between him and the Scoobies. “Is that the sacrificial-guy?”

“No!” Jeff yelled - and took off at a speed that might have let him outrun the slime wave.

Chuck sighed, Faith chuckled, and Xander shook his head. “Buffy!”

Buffy blinked, surprised. “What? That was so not my fault!”

“You scared him off.”

“I didn’t! I was all friendly-like. And why would he flee from little old me, and not Faith?”

“Obviously, I was too hot to scare him off, B!”

“What? No, you’re not!”

“I’m not touching that,” Xander said.

And neither was Chuck.

*****

“...and I managed to seal the entire room - and, yes, I did reinforce the room, too, thank you very much, did you think I would make such an amateur mistake? - just in time. It was good that you were so fast, though, so all of the slime was inside the room when I sealed it. I would have been forced to either seal you inside or let part of the Lord of Slime’s slime escape, and either would’ve been of the bad - what if he could travel through the slime? Now he’s trapped, though, and as it is, I only have to renew the spell every five or six hours - five, to be safe - until we can deal with the root of the problem. Although I expect that as time passes and the slime pressure raises, the spell will require more frequent renewing, so we really should deal with the big slime soon, otherwise, it will reach a point where I will have to keep renewing the spell constantly, and I won’t be able to keep that up forever, you know?”

Chuck marvelled how Willow managed to breathe while she babbled. Though what she said… “So, we’re under a time limit,” he summed her explanation up as they sneaked past the crowd in the parking lot - was the news there as well? - and into Wienerlicious.

“I just said that, didn’t I?”

“He just translated for us, Red.”

“But…”

Standing on the stairs leading down to The Castle, Chuck stopped listening to Willow and grimaced.

Dawn was talking to the general.

*****


	9. The Season Part 4

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 13th, 2007**

“...and don’t worry, General, we’ve got this,” Dr Summers’s cheerful voice announced as Sarah followed Chuck down the stairs.

“Ah. Agent Walker. Agent Casey. Mr Bartowski. I’ve heard you were busy.”

Sarah managed not to wince at the general’s tone. Yes, this was the nail in her career’s coffin. “General.” She nodded. “We have a situation here.”

“So I was told - by a civilian. A Weapon of Mass Destruction in Los Angeles? And you didn’t inform me at once?”

“You lack the necessary security clearance, General,” Casey added. He was standing straight, not quite at attention, but close.

“Really.” Beckman’s expression didn’t change, but her tone grew even colder.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Uh… you see,” Chuck said, “It really was an emergency, and we’re bound to help protect the country from such threats, so we rendered any assistance needed to…”

“...a foreign strike team?” the General finished for him. “Without permission or orders?”

“Hey! We’re Americans!” Summers cut in. “Born in California! I could even become president if I wanted to!”

“No one would vote for you,” Dr Summers said.

Sarah clenched her teeth. This wasn’t the time to joke around! “Ma’am, you’re aware of our orders from the Secretary of Homeland Security.”

“The order was to leave certain foreign intelligence assets alone.”

“Well, we couldn’t actually sit around and let someone destroy Los Angeles, could we?” Chuck said. He looked angry, now, Sarah saw. “And as we said, you don’t have the needed clearance to know about this.”

“As opposed to you, Agent Walker and Agent Casey.”

“Uh, yes.” Chuck nodded. “Exactly!”

“I’m their superior officer,” Beckman spat.

“Yes, but you’re not our friend,” Summers replied. “Chuck is, and he’s vouching for Sarah and Casey, so we told them. And since we have the authority to decide whom we inform, it’s all hunky-dory.” She beamed at the general.

“So you can tell me,” Beckman retorted with a glare at Dr Summers. Just what had the woman said to the general before they had arrived?

“We could, but we won’t,” Rosenberg said. “No one’s vouching for you, after all.” The general glanced at Sarah and Casey, and Rosenberg frowned. “They’re your subordinates. That means that they can’t vouch for you, obviously.”

“Well, they could, but we’d have to consider the imbalance of power there,” Dr Summers said. “Besides, if you need to know, your superiors will tell you,” she added with a rather pronounced smirk.

“They don’t like the military,” Chuck whispered next to Sarah.

She would have been able to tell without that.

“That aside,” Beckman said - through clenched teeth, “I didn’t give you permission to let anyone use this facility.”

“Hey, Madam General!” Summers stepped forward and stood with her hands on her hips. “Do you really want to make a fuss about us using your secret lair to save the city? Do you realise how stupid your complaint will sound?”

“Complaint? I am the commanding officer of this mission!”

“Oh! So you are planning to punish Sarah and Casey?” Rosenberg said rather than ask. “For saving the city? Typical! Is there something in the water at the Pentagon that turns people into stupidheads?”

“Besides, all we have to do is ask nicely, and you’ll get ordered to transfer your base to us for the duration of the ‘save L.A.’ mission,” Dr Summers added.

“Oh! Let’s do that!” Summers was almost bouncing on her high-heeled feet. Sarah couldn’t tell how she managed. “Do you want to do the honours, Willow?”

“Let’s not,” Harris said. “We have a mission to focus on, haven’t we? We still have to defuse the ‘weapon’.”

“What?” Beckman blurted out.

“Ah, right.” Summers turned back to the general. “Yes, we eliminated the bad guys, but the thingy is still dangerous, so we need to deal with it. That’ll take a little longer. So, how about we do our job, you do yours - whatever that is, apart from glaring at people through a TV screen - and we share the base like mature people?” Her smile was anything but mature, in Sarah’s opinion.

And Beckman’s expression clearly showed that she shared that view. But the general nodded - very curtly. “Alright.” The connection was cut without further words.

Sarah closed her eyes.

“Wow, you made her really angry, Dawn!” Summers said.

“Did not! I was all polite-like! It’s not my fault she didn’t like getting told that she had no need to know - I didn’t make their rules!”

This was bad. Very bad. So bad even Chuck noticed. “Will they fire you?” he asked in a low voice.

“If they do, we’ll hire you!” Summers announced. Of course, the Slayer would have overheard.

“They won’t,” Casey said. “Not yet. The Intersect is too important. And they don’t want to risk a leak.”

“Ah, that is good, isn’t it?” Chuck said.

Sarah pressed her lips together. Casey just scoffed.

“Uh… they wouldn’t try to kill you, would they?” Chuck said.

“Dead men don’t tell tales,” Casey said.

“But…” Chuck looked around. “They know this would mean war?” 

“Only if they’re caught,” Casey said with a sneer.

Sarah nodded. That was how things were done by spies. “Plausible deniability,” she said.

“We’re not playing by those rules,” Summers said with a scowl. “We’re not spies. And they should know that, after Sunnydale.”

Sarah refrained from rolling her eyes. “What matters is that the CIA and the NSA play by those rules. And would you honestly start a war with the USA if Casey or I die under suspicious circumstances, but you had no solid evidence?”

“We can get evidence!” Summers said with a rather feral grin.

“Yes. It’s not the safest use of magic, but we can find out whether or not the CIA killed you,” Rosenberg added. “I mean, hypothetically - I don’t think and, of course, I certainly don’t wish that either of you got killed, you know. It’s just, should something happen to you, we can check if General Grumpyhead was behind it.”

“Letting future employees of the Council get killed without retaliation sets a very bad example,” Harris said.

Ah. Sarah narrowed her eyes slightly, then forced herself to relax so she wouldn’t show her thoughts. Was that why Dr Summers had riled up the general? To drive Casey and Sarah into quitting and joining the Council more quickly? To make them need protection only the Council could grant them?

Summers didn’t seem to be the type to play such games, but the best spies never did. And Summers was the one who took over the Council with her friends, according to Chuck. A bunch of kids barely in their twenties didn’t manage such feats unless they were far more skilled at subterfuge than they let on.

“But…” Chuck shook his head. “You can tell the government to keep them in check, can’t you?”

“We sure will!” Summers declared.

“But the government doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to keeping their spies under control,” Dr Summers remarked.

The woman was correct, though Sarah was also aware that many officially unsanctioned missions had actually been ordered by the government. Or at least tolerated.

“But a direct order not to kill us will help, won’t it?” Chuck asked, looking at everyone present. Sarah was reminded that he was still somewhat naive when it came to the spy business.

“They won’t be killing you, Bartowski,” Casey spat. “They need you.”

“Uh… only until they have restored the Intersect,” Chuck replied.

“And there’s Fulcrum to consider,” Sarah pointed out. “By moving against us, the Agency would lose a valuable asset in the struggle with that conspiracy.”

Casey snorted. “They’ll consider us compromised already - barely better than Fulcrum.”

And it would make it easier for Fulcrum to launch missions against them and Chuck. 

“Why can’t the government be reasonable for once?” Summers complained. Sarah almost expected her to stomp her foot. Which would probably damage the floor, now that she thought about it.

“They wouldn’t be the government if they were,” Harris replied. “It’s probably in the constitution somewhere.”

Casey growled while the Scoobies snickered.

Sarah didn’t feel like laughing.

*****

“Anyway, if we have to, we can take General Grumpyhead to a demon bar,” Willow said. “But I’d really prefer not to have her type know about demons and magic. She reminds me of Walsh.”

“Ew!” Buffy made a face.

Chuck shuddered as well. He hadn’t met the woman in question, but what he had heard about her work. He certainly hoped that Beckman wasn’t like that. “But we have to do something!”

“I’ll call Giles and tell him to tell Mr Government to tell the general to call off her killers,” Buffy said, then frowned. “I didn’t forget any ‘to’s, did I?”

“No, you didn’t,” Dawn said. “Now go and get yelled at by Giles!”

“Yes… Hey! It’s not my fault! I shouldn’t get yelled at!” Buffy pouted.

“You volunteered!” Xander said. “No take backs!”

“Yep, B. Shouldn’t have volunteered.”

“Anyway, get a move on, Buffy!” Dawn said. “We need that problem dealt with since we have to deal with the Lord of Slime.”

Right. Chuck winced - after the revelation that the CIA might be sending killers after Sarah and Casey, he had briefly forgotten about the demon beneath the Buy More. “Uh… and how do we do that?” he asked.

“Don’t mind me, I’ll listen in from the next room,” Buffy said as she stepped into the locker room.

“Don’t worry, we wouldn’t stop on your behalf!” Dawn yelled back.

“Hey!”

“Anyway!” Xander said. “Slime Lord. Solutions?”

“We need to banish him back to his realm,” Willow replied.

“The realm of all slimes? Is that a special hell for politicians?” 

It wasn’t one of Xander’s better jokes, but Chuck snorted anyway. Once.

“We don’t exactly know. Plinius didn’t say anything about it,” Dawn said. “But we have testimonies about past appearances in medieval times, and the book supposedly used to summon it. Unfortunately, the Council’s copy of the tome was destroyed when the First had the old headquarters blown up.”

“Blown up? They used explosives?” Casey asked.

“Some demons will use anything. Adam used magic machine guns,” Xander replied.

Chuck was sure there was a flicker of envy on Casey’s face when the agent heard about magic guns. “So, we need to find another copy?” Chuck asked, to get back on topic.

“Yes. And in a few days, or we’ll have to prepare plan b,” Willow said.

“Plan b?” Sarah asked,

“Plan _B_ ,” Faith said, grinning. “Hit it until it dies.”

“It works every time!” Buffy yelled from the next room. “Sorry, Giles!”

“The Lord of Slimes is in the middle of a giant compressed slimeball,” Chuck pointed out. “How would you even get into range?”

“We’ll find a way,” Faith said, flashing her teeth, as she dismissed his concerns. “So… I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling hungry and horny.”

And that was Chuck’s cue to leave.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 13th, 2007**

Ellie was out of her apartment’s door and moving towards them before they had finished parking the car. Yes, she had been waiting for them. Chuck winced before he got out of the car. “Hi, Sis!”

“What happened?” she replied, frowning at him, then smiled at Sarah before he could answer. “They didn’t rag you into this… affair… as well, did they?”

“Ah, no,” Sarah replied. “I let them use my store, though.” 

It was technically correct, Chuck guessed - he had been the one to drag her into the supernatural world, not the Scoobies. Unless you count indirect dragging - it had been the Scoobies who had told him about the truth behind Sunnydale’s ’weirdness’.

“Good,” Ellie said. “They can handle it. They did handle it, I hope.”

“Well…” Chuck began.

“What happened?”

“I was about to explain,” he replied, a little peeved. Ellie was worried, afraid, but she could let him finish, couldn’t she? “Anyway,” he continued after a moment, “They stopped a giant slime demon from burying the Buy More.” No need to go into details about his own role here. He hadn’t done much to speak of anyway.

“That was why the store was evacuated?”

“Uh, it was related - there were some attacks there, too. Morgan and Caridad handled the store.”

“And what did you do?”

“I helped Sarah.” Once more, technically true. Chuck still felt bad lying to Ellie. But next to lying to her about his work as a spy - or an intelligence asset, to be precise - this was a small thing. More or less.

“Ah.” Ellie seemed to approve. “So, the ‘situation’ has been dealt with?”

“Not entirely. They still need to figure out how to get rid of all the slime that came through a portal before they stopped it.”

Ellie laughed at that. “I would suggest buckets. Lots of buckets.”

“I could loan them a mop, too,” Sarah added with a giggle.

Chuck forced himself to laugh as well.

*****

“That was rather smooth, how you handled Ellie,” Sarah told him half an hour later, when they were eating their takeaway.

“Uh, thank you.” Chuck wasn’t entirely sure - not at all, to be precise - if he wanted to be complimented for lying to his sister. But being told you did good by your girlfriend who was also one of the top spies of the CIA? That felt good. As long as it was honest - but then, Sarah didn’t really hold back with criticism during their training, did she? “So… just how bad is the situation with the general?”

Sarah took the time to take another bite out of her pizza, chew and swallow before answering. “I don’t exactly know. But I don’t think they want to risk losing you.”

“If they try to kill you, they’ll lose me for sure,” he said. “And I think I could tell if it was them thanks to this.” He pointed at his temple.

She smiled at that. “It all depends on how Beckman will take the Council’s intervention.” Another bite. “And speaking of that: How good are the Scoobies at these kinds of politics?”

She was worried - Chuck could tell. He did his best to smile reassuringly at her. “Don’t worry. That’s being handled by Giles, and he’s really good at that. He’s an experienced Watcher, and he basically rebuilt the Council, recruiting more Watchers, getting older Watchers out of retirement, that sort of thing.”

“That’s good to know.” 

Her smile was a little forced, or so it seemed. Apparently, Chuck hadn’t managed to reassure her that Giles would have things in hand.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, December 14th, 2007**

“...so thanks to Giles’ friend’s information, we know the book was sold through the Barnes & Sons Auction House - which is a really sexist name, by the way, and they should really change it, I can’t believe they get much business in California in the twenty-first century with such a name. What if they have a daughter who wants to get into the family business? Anyway, we don’t know who bought the book, and since those sexist relics don’t use computers, I couldn’t just hack their records to find out. So, we have to use alternate means to acquire the information we need.”

“Breathe, Willow,” Xander said.

“I am breathing. I couldn’t talk if I didn’t breathe, could I?”

Chuck wasn’t entirely certain if that was a good argument, but he decided to focus on the matter at hand and leave deciphering the mysteries of Willow’s talking speed to another day. “You mean we’ll have to break in and steal the records?”

“Copy them,” Willow corrected him. “There’s no need to steal anything - even though that might teach them not to keep all their records on paper, probably in those horrible old-fashioned ledgers.”

"Don’t let Giles hear you!” Xander laughed.

Willow sniffed. “We’ll get him to use a computer sooner or later. With most of our records now in digital format, especially the microfilm copies of the main library we managed to recover, he doesn’t have a choice. He will have to adapt.”

“Leaving Giles’ Luddite tendencies aside,” Dawn cut in, “we need to do this quickly. Once we know the name of the buyer, we still need to acquire the Tome of Orean.”

“What if the buyer sold it in the meantime?” Sarah asked.

“Then we’ll have to find the next buyer,” Willow said. “So, there’s no time to lose!”

“That’s what I said!”

“It bears repeating!”

"Sounds like a standard mission,” Casey said with a grin - was it aimed at Faith? Chuck hadn’t paid attention to the NSA agent, and he had been actively trying to ignore Faith before Sarah got angry. Had Casey and Faith done it last night? No, Caridad wasn’t trying to kill her, so Chuck guessed they hadn’t.

“Well, since they handle occult books often, we’ll have to expect some supernatural defences,” Willow said.

That made Sarah and Casey frown, Chuck noticed.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown, December 14th, 2007**

“Welcome to Barnes & Sons, Mr Carmichael. I’m Anna Lopez.” The thirty-something woman greeting Chuck and Sarah was dressed well, though only in California would her skirt length have been called modest.

“Thank you.” Chuck resisted the urge to add 'glad to be here' - sometimes he still felt as if it were a game when he was on a mission. But it wasn't a game.

"How can we help you?" 

"I have recently acquired a few old books in a sale - they came with the house - and since my interests don't cover Latin books, I'm looking to sell them. Your firm was recommended to me by an acquaintance."

“Ah!” The woman’s polite smile grew a little. “Our firm has handled such transactions before, to the satisfaction of our clients.”

“So I was told.” He looked around as they walked over to the desk and flashed.

“Who was it who referred you to us, if I may ask?”

“Ah, an old friend of my late father. Rupert Giles,” Chuck replied.

Lopez’s eyes widened a little - unless she was impressed by Giles’s academic efforts, this could be a hint that she knew about the supernatural. Many auction houses dealing with antiques had had incidents with cursed items, after all. At least Dawn claimed so. “Ah.”

“Yes,” Chuck went on, “he bought a few old books himself, but said the rest would get better prices if I had them auctioned off.”

“I agree.” Judging by the woman’s smile, she definitely knew about the supernatural and was relieved that Giles apparently had taken care of potentially dangerous tomes. Perhaps they could have simply asked for the name - but then, Dawn had also said that the firm was very discreet. Too discreet.

“Oh, look, Charles!” Sarah piped up. “This scroll here would go so well with the leather couch! It’s the same tone!”

“Really?” Chuck made a show of joining his girlfriend and peering at the old map. “Oh, it’s a map. How much is it?”

“It’s an original map dating by to Vasco da Gama,” Lopez said, with a slightly strained smile. “It’s not for sale, actually.”

“Aw!” Sarah did her best imitation of Harmony - Chuck had to suppress a shudder. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Miss,” Lopez replied. “It’s not for sale.”

“Really? But it would fit our living room so well!”

“Really, Miss.”

Chuck cleared his throat. “Ah, so… how about we look at my books?” He pointed at his bag. Carmichael would have dropped it on the next table, but Dawn had warned him against damaging her books. Very thoroughly. And impressively.

“Of course. If you would join me in my office?”

“Of course.” That was why they were here, after all. He looked at the back wall and flashed. “Omega Mark 3 Security cameras, linked to a central server,” he whispered. “Laser sensors on the vault doors.” But they didn’t need the vaults.

“Got it,” Sarah replied in a low voice as they followed Lopez into her office - which was quite a little larger than Chuck had expected. The woman must have a higher position in the firm than he had thought. 

“So…” He carefully put the bag on the table and opened it. “What do you think?”

Lopez didn’t quite whistle, but she looked like she wanted to. Badly. “Is that an original ‘Ars Naturae’?”

“A what?” Chuck acted as if Dawn hadn’t told him about every book.

“One of the earliest surviving encyclopedias,” Lopez replied without looking at him. She was pulling on gloves now.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Excuse me. Where is the toilet?”

“What? Ah, down the hallway, left.” Lopez answered. “Oh, and a treatise by Newton?”

Chuck smiled and nodded while Sarah sneaked out. She returned ten minutes later, although Chuck didn’t think Lopez had noticed anything outside the books he had on display.

He almost felt bad for taking them away again, to ‘think this through’ after Sarah suddenly started talking about a collection.

“Got it?” he asked as soon as they left the auction house.

“Yes,” she replied, raising her bracelet with the hidden camera.

Perfect. Mission accomplished. Like a real spy.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 14th, 2007**

“So, now we know that the book was sold to Trevor Martini. An ‘independently wealthy’ collector of antiques,” Willow said.

“Is that a collector, or a ‘collector’?” Xander asked.

“The second means a practitioner of magic or a demon, gathering artefacts and other dangerous items,” Chuck explained in a whisper to Sarah. She didn’t thank him, so she probably had guessed that already.

“If he’s involved in the supernatural then he hasn’t made any waves in the area,” Phil replied. “Neither Caridad nor I have heard the name before today.”

“He’s also not known in the usual circles competing with us for grimoires and other relics,” Dawn added.

“So he might be a legitimate collector of antiques, then?” Chuck asked.

Casey scoffed. “Always assume the worst.”

Caridad nodded. “Yes.” She handed a plate of hot dogs over to Buffy and went back to make more - which was pretty much the reason this briefing was held in the Wienerlicious, and not The Castle, Chuck suspected, no matter how often Willow claimed they didn’t want to provoke Beckman further.

“You’re an experienced man, indeed,” Faith added with a smile that made Chuck breathe a little more quickly even though it was aimed at the NSA agent. It also made Caridad scowl, he noticed. And Sarah, too. Oops.

He cleared his throat. “So… how do we get the book we need?”

“Well...you’re the spies, isn’t that what you do?” Buffy replied. “Getting whatever information is needed to save the world. Or at least the country.”

“You want us to take the lead on this?” Sarah asked. “Even though there might be supernatural defences in place?”

“Yes!” Buffy said. “Willow has to stay close to the lair so she can renew the spell, and we need two Slayers here to protect her during that time, but you can have one Slayer with you. Should be enough to deal with any trouble.”

“I’ll go!” Caridad said.

“You’re the one with a cover here,” Faith said. “And you’re known to the spies’ bosses. And I’ve got some experience with breaking into houses,” she added.

“I also have experience with breaking in!” Caridad retorted. “And we’re going to do it at night, so the store’s closed anyway!”

“And General Grumpypants doesn’t like anyone of us,” Dawn added.

“And I have the most experience working with them!” Caridad said, putting both her hands on her hips.

“Sounds to me that’s a reason for others to gain some experience working with our spies here,” Faith replied. She was smirking, but Chuck couldn’t tell if she was serious or merely yanking Caridad’s chain.

“What for? You’ll fly out after this anyway!” Caridad sniffed. “It would be a waste of time.”

“Oh, it would be anything but a waste of time, I’m sure.” The Slayer leered at Casey.

“Faith! We’re talking about a break-in, not a…” Buffy trailed off.

“A what, B?”

“You know what I mean!”

“I don’t. I’m talking about coordination and cooperation for a smooth experience - even though it might get a little rough,” Faith drawled while her grin showed more teeth than some demons.

“I like it rough.”

Chuck wasn’t the only one turning towards Casey. The NSA agent blinked, probably surprised himself at what he had blurted out.

Faith smiled widely, and, for a moment, Chuck thought Caridad would attack the other Slayer. But then she turned around and stomped out of the store. Phil excused himself a moment later and followed her.

“I guess that means I’m coming with you,” Faith said, sounding utterly unrepentant.

“Ah, yes.” Casey sounded like he had second thoughts.

“Good. Let’s go then - we have no time to waste. In and out and done. Just as I like it,” the Slayer said.

Chuck exchanged a glance with Sarah. She seemed to share his bad feeling.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Hollywood, December 14th, 2007**

“Have you noticed how many Santa Clauses are around? Even at this time of the evening?” Chuck shook his head. It had seemed that every street had one of them, coming, going, or standing there and asking for donations for something.

“It’s the season, Bartowski,” Casey replied as he took another turn.

“Boston had more,” Faith, who had commandeered the passenger seat up front, added.

“I’m just wondering if that would be a decent cover for a mission. Who’s paying attention to Santa? After seeing half a dozen of them in the last half an hour? It might as well act as an SEP field.”

“SEP field?” Sarah asked.

“Somebody else’s problem,” Chuck started to explain. “It’s an invention of…”

“The guy who wrote the Hitchhikers Guide!” Faith cut in. “Red made a spell like it, once, but it wasn’t working out right. People forgot all about the area, wandered off, then remembered what they were doing and returned… it was a funny loop, but not exactly subtle.”

“That sounds like it was a good start,” Chuck commented.

“Well…” Faith shrugged. “She would have had to have it mess with memories to work right.”

“And?” That shouldn’t be too hard, should it? Chuck thought.

“Red doesn’t like memory spells.”

“Ah.” Chuck didn’t really got what that meant, but he understood what her tone meant: That the Scoobies didn’t like to talk about it. “So… no Santa disguise?”

“We can dress you up as one of his elves,” Casey said. “And let the opposition laugh themselves to death.”

It wasn’t really funny, in Chuck’s opinion. Not at all. Faith probably was just laughing because she wanted to sleep with Casey. Not that he would say that, of course. Faith had a reputation for sex _and_ violence, after all.

Ten minutes and another Santa later, they reached their destination - the home of Martini. It was an older villa, different from the current style preferred by the stars du jour. A tall wall and dense garden surrounded a house that would have fit better into an old town on the East Coast. “He really wants that Old Money impression,” he commented. Martini had made his fortune as a stock trader in New York.

“Many of the nouveaux riches do,” Sarah agreed. 

“Discuss the architecture later and focus on the security systems,” Casey barked. “Let’s split up and do some recon.”

They had satellite pictures, and Willow had found a ‘Home’ article depicting the house shortly after it had been built, but none were up to date. “So…” Chuck nodded across the street. “We’ll take left, and you’ll take right?” 

Casey snorted, as if Chuck had made a joke, but agreed, and they split up.

“Let’s hope Faith doesn’t distract Casey too much,” Chuck commented five minutes later when Sarah and he were observing the back of the house from a hundred and fifty yards away, hidden by some scrubby bushes. Far enough for Slayer hearing to miss his words. So he hoped, anyway.

“He’s too professional for that,” Sarah replied. She was studying the door in the wall there through binoculars, as was Chuck himself.

He made an agreeing noise. He heard the implied rebuke, too. Focus on the job, not on your team members’ social lives, got it. Or Sarah was simply tired of the Slayers.

“Do you think she’s really interested?” Sarah asked a minute later. 

Perhaps Chuck had misinterpreted her. He cleared his throat. “I don’t know. I never knew Faith very well. She wasn’t at school with us.” And he wouldn’t go into details about the reasons for that. “It could be that she just wants Casey because Caridad is interested and Faith wants to show her who’s boss. Slayers are big on the ‘pack order’.” Xander had told him that, once. During the Wolfram and Hart affair, Chuck recalled. When an army of Slayers had descended on Los Angeles.

“‘Pack order’?”

“Yes. Dominance plays and such.”

“You make it sound as if they’re animals.”

“Uh…” That was a comparison one should never utter near a Slayer. “Not like that. It’s just that they are all highly competitive. Remember Caridad going on about ‘poaching’ in her town?”

“That sounds like a predator behaving claiming a territory.”

“Well…” Best to change the topic. “Perhaps Faith just wants a fling with the guy close to getting testosterone poisoning?”

Sarah snorted at that. Good.

*****

The wall was tall and topped with ornamental but functional spikes. But the garden had grown a little too much and would hide their approach to the house, once they were over the wall. Of course, it would also hide traps and other nasty surprises, like guard dogs.

But Sarah had dealt with such obstacles before. Easily. They wouldn’t be much of a problem.

She hadn’t dealt with magical defences, though. Those would be tricky. An SEP field… She imagined falling victim to one such spell, wandering around in a confused haze, and pressed her lips together. What could you do against such traps? Lehane had mentioned that Rosenberg hadn’t pursued that spell further, but that didn’t mean others didn’t have similar tricks.

Sarah really could do without her mind being magically controlled - or wiped. The worst was that she couldn’t spot any magical traps. She could tell where the cameras and other sensors of the security system were - they had to cover certain angles and she knew how they worked and what they could do, and Martini would have hired competent people to install his security. She could also tell how to circumvent them. But how did you check for magic? She didn’t know what rules governed magic, or what limitations it had.

And she hated it.

She keyed her radio. “Back route looks good,” she whispered. “The wall’s half-hidden by the trees, and the back door has a standard lock. Three cameras, none of them with overlocking areas.” 

“Amateur hour,” Casey commented through the radio. “Front’s covered better, but not by much.”

“Isn’t that weird?” Chuck asked. She didn’t have to look at him to know he was frowning in that ‘I’m thinking’ manner of his. “Shouldn’t a man with as much money as Martini protect his home a little better?”

“It’s enough to keep out the kind of trash that would actually bother burglarising his home,” Casey replied. “And he doesn’t have the money to keep out the real pros.”

Like top spies, Sarah thought.

“But there wasn’t any report of even an attempted break-in in the files we got.” Chuck was being stubborn. “And it’s not exactly in the middle of Hollywood. So… wouldn’t someone have tried, at least?”

He had a point. Sarah pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes. Perhaps…

“Could be they break in, but never get out,” Lehane said, finishing Sarah’s thoughts.

Casey’s curse told her that he had come to the same conclusion. “Good thinking, Chuck,” Sarah said.

“It doesn’t change anything,” Casey went on. “We still need to get in, get the book, and get out.”

“And we will.” Lehane snorted. “We just might get to kill whatever monster the guy’s feeding burglars to, too.”

She sounded as if she was looking forward to the experience. Sarah didn’t approve - adrenaline junkies were the worst partners. The trouble Carina had gotten Sarah involved in the past proved that, though with Carina, it was also her impulsiveness and impatience, of course.

Which, Sarah realised, would fit every Slayer she had met so far as well. Great. “Well, unless we want Los Angeles to be flooded with slime, we need to move,” she said. “Meet at our position.”

A few minutes later, they were making their way to Martini’s backyard by crawling, using he scarce, dry bushes and the larger rocks littering the area as cover. Another sign of sloppy security, Sarah thought - these plants should have been cleared. On the other hand, Martini hadn’t even bothered with keeping the area near his backyard from ruining his security…

She reached the wall and pressed herself against it, inching her way to the side until she could see the camera supposedly covering the area. It had a blind spot large enough to stand up in - and Sarah did exactly that. A minute later, the camera was looped. “Done,” she whispered into her radio.

“Going in,” Lehane replied. Then the Slayer _jumped_ over the wall, easily clearing the spikes. And, Sarah thought as she pressed her lips together, the woman probably has been taking care not to jump too high to be covered by the trees...

“Clear,” the Slayer reported at once. “Can’t see, smell or sense anything in the garden. Come on over.”

Grappling hooks got the rest of them over the wall, though Chuck had to be pushed over by Casey, with Sarah helping him over the spikes. She made a mental note to focus a little more on climbing than running in their training before she had to focus on the mission at hand again.

One camera at the house, and another ‘hidden’ on the almost over-grown gazebo. Neither posed any challenge. But they weren’t the same type. Either Martini had updated his security at one point, or he’d had to replace part of it.

The lock on the back door looked brand new, too. Lehane bent down and _sniffed_ it. Frowning, she straightened, “Smells like a slime demon.”

“What are the odds that Martini’s corpse is lying in the freak’s lair, compressed into a thin paste by tons of slime?” Casey asked.

“Or rotting inside his home, his book stolen by slime demons?” Sarah pointed out.

“Let’s find out!” Lehane replied.

Like the cameras, the lock wasn’t an obstacle to a trained spy, and Casey had to door open in less than a minute. It opened into a kitchen, though it didn’t look like it had been used recently.

But before Sarah could move further, Chuck flashed.

*****

Chuck shook his head, blinking. “Uh, guys… there’s a LaserTrack-2000 security system hidden inside the kitchen. Who would install such a system in his kitchen?”

“Someone who wants to catch thieves inside his house,” Casey replied, baring his teeth.

“What does it do?” Faith asked. “Shooting lasers?”

“Uh, no,” Chuck explained. “It is a sophisticated motion detection system. Very sensitive. Could track a Slayer as well.”

The Slayer chuckled. “He must have been very concerned about midnight food runs.”

“I doubt that it has a line to the police, but we can’t assume that Martini’s dead. So we can’t risk triggering it,” Casey said.

“Let’s see how much it covers,” Sarah said, pulling a can out of her backpack. She aimed the can at the centre of the kitchen, then pressed the top. The fine mist that started to fill the room allowed them to spot the lasers covering the kitchen - the entire dozen of them.

Chuck swallowed - they had to get past that?

Faith, though, didn’t seem to worry. “Nice trick!” she said. “So, how do I turn it off?”

“The controls are usually protected by a code reader,” Chuck replied, still, staring at the web of lasers crisscrossing the room.

“Hm.” Faith looked at Sarah. “You up for some gymnastics?”

Sarah not-quite-glared at the Slayer, Chuck noticed, as she nodded, baring her teeth. “Yes.”

Faith moved through the room like a hot knife through butter. Or something like it. The Slayer dashed forward, jumped, rolled, then jumped again, landing in a crouch next to the door leading into the rest of the house.

Chuck wasn’t really watching her, though. He was watching Sarah. The spy - his girlfriend - took it more slowly, moving with precision and timing - and a grace, that, to Chuck looked more impressive than the supernatural smoothness of a Slayer. And she looked great doing it, even though she took half a minute to clear the room. And another thirty seconds to disable the lasers.

“Now where would he keep the book?” Chuck wondered when they entered the corridor behind the kitchen.

“Basement. Bad guys always hide things in the basement,” Faith replied, already headed towards the stairs up ahead. She sniffed the air and cocked her head. “Doesn’t look like there’s anyone home.”

“But smart bad guys would try to subvert that,” Chuck protested as he followed the others downstairs.

“Most bad guys aren’t exactly smart,” the Slayer retorted. “And that doesn’t look like the man’s concerned about his wine,” she added, pointing at the sturdy metal door at the bottom.

Once more, it took Sarah less than a minute to pick the lock, then Faith pushed the door open, revealing a room that perfectly fit the ‘mad scientist’ or ‘evil wizard’ cliché: Massive tables - some with restraints - cages containing what looked like human remains - Chuck shuddered - beakers, rows of vials and bottles containing weird ingredients, and… no, there wasn’t a shelf full of books, actually.

But there was a safe.

“I think we found our cultist leader,” Faith said, pointing at something in a cage. Something that looked like a half-formed human. No, a half-formed construct, Chuck realised.

Which was starting to move. As were the others in the room.

*****


	10. The Season Part 5

**California, Los Angeles, Hollywood, December 14th, 2007**

“Guys!” Chuck yelled - but everyone else was already moving as slimes flowed through bars and cages swung open, releasing more monsters. A kick from Faith shattered the molten head of the closest construct, sending it reeling while she whirled around, grabbed a chair and hurled it into a half-slime something that was oozing down a table. Casey and Sarah were falling back towards the door, weapons ready but not firing.

“Chuck!”

Right. He quickly joined them before he could end as slime food - or collateral damage of Faith’s attack; she had already pulverised a table. 

And she seemed to enjoy it - as Chuck took cover behind the spies, he saw the Slayer grin ferally. “Don’t worry!” she yelled as she crushed a ‘core’ of a construct with her bare hands, “I’ll be finished in no time!”

True to her words, the construct collapsed and started to melt, joining the others already reduced to puddles on the floor. Growing puddles, Chuck noticed. “Uh…” 

Faith shattered another core, and the slime puddle grew even more - covering half the floor now.

Chuck blinked. If that slime was adhesive or poisoned… Or, he added as he watched a table leg starting to sink into the puddle, dissolving as it did so, acidic… “Faith! Watch the slime on the floor! It dissolves stuff!”

“What? Fuck!” Faith leapt on the next table and used a roundhouse-kick to fling another construct into a wall.

Casey muttered a curse next to him and backed off further, pushing Chuck towards the stairs. Chuck slid around. He had to observe.

“Chuck! Be careful!” Sarah said, joining him.

He quickly calculated a few things. There were about half a dozen slime-constructs in various stages left. And more than half the floor was covered in slime already. If Faith finished all of them off, then the entire floor would be covered. That would make getting to the safe complicated. “We might have to get climbing gear,” he told the others, “if we want to crack that safe.”

Nearby, a metal pole started to tilt, then crashed into the slime, the bottom half-dissolved already.

“And we need to do it right now!” Chuck blurted out. “The slime’s dissolving metal too. If it starts on the safe… Or we can use the stones from the garden as stepping stones! The slime doesn’t dissolve stone! Easier to use than the climbing gear.”

“They’re too heavy,” Casey objected.

“I can carry them!” Fatih yelled, crushing another core. “But it’ll be a close call. Fuckers are stubborn!”

“Let’s get the climbing gear now - she can fetch stones once she’s done,” Sarah said.

Casey was already pulling out… a crossbow? Modern model, Chuck noticed. And a grappling hook - of course!

A moment later, the agent had it aimed and fired, and bolt appeared in the back wall, above the safe, with a line fastened to it. Three seconds and a grunt as Casey recocked the crossbow later, a second bolt trailing a line joined the first.

And Sarah was about to finish fastening her climbing harness.

Chuck clenched his teeth.

*****

Sarah finished getting ready, watching as Lehane smashed another construct, then had to jump off a toppling table and perch on a slowly sinking shelf while the last two constructs ambled - or flowed, in the case of the legless one - towards her. “Almost done!” the Slayer yelled.

And the way to the safe was clear - more or less. Sarah took a deep breath and hooked her harness to the lines Casey had secured.

“Sarah…” Chuck trailed off.

She looked at him and smiled. “We can’t wait for the Slayer to finish and then get the rocks down here.” She didn’t need to be a genius to calculate how fast the slime ate through metal.

“I heard that!” Faith yelled, then launched herself into a jump-kick, smashing a construct’s head, propelling herself into the air once more and landing with both booted feet on the second, flattening its upper half.

“Be careful,” Chuck said, biting his lips.

She nodded, hesitated a moment, then grabbed him for a quick kiss. “You too,” she whispered. Then she hooked herself to the lines and pushed off, sliding along the line towards the safe. She had to pull up her legs to avoid touching the growing pool of slime on the ground, but only for a second or two before she hit the wall, feet first.

She spent a second checking the bolts that held the lines, then used her harness to descend, upside down, towards the safe’s door. Below her, the slime was already lapping against the safe’s base. 

No pressure, she thought with a grin and started to work on the lock. Which was, she discovered to her dismay, a little more sophisticated than the locks on the doors. Not impossible to pick, of course - far from it.

But, she added to herself, holding a small flashlight in her teeth as she started to work, with the safe already beginning to tilt as part of its base was being dissolved, it might take time she didn’t have.

*****

Chuck bit his lips until he tasted blood. The safe was now imitating the Tower of Pisa, and Sarah was still - hanging upside down - working on its lock. In the other corner of the room, Faith was finishing the last construct by ramming a wrecked chair through its core. The construct collapsed, and Chuck could see it dissolve into slime as the pieces sunk into the pool on the floor.

“Hurry!” he yelled. “Get the rocks from the garden!”

“Yeah, yeah!” the Slayer snapped as she jumped off a sinking table, landed on the remains of a shelf - which her boots smashed into the slime - and jumped off again before the slime could touch her. She twisted in the air, hit the wall - not quite running - and jumped off again in a display of athletics rarely seen outside video games and Hong Kong movies, landing next to Chuck and Casey. “Be right back!” she snapped - and she was gone.

And Chuck was back to watching Sarah and worrying. The safe was tilting even more now, any moment it would topple, crushing Sarah. “We should drop something heavy on the backside of the safe’s roof,” he said. “Make it stop tilting forward. Gain some time.” The added weight pressing down on the safe wouldn’t do much to speed up the sinking, would it?

“Yeah, we’ll just wiggle our noses and blink, and teleport an anvil over, right?” Casey, watching the ropes, scoffed.

“It was just an idea,” Chuck defended himself. Perhaps Faith could drop the first rock… “Faith! She can drop a rock in front of the safe, and stop the tilting!”

“And block the safe’s door,” Casey retorted.

“Uh…”

“Walker’s a skilled spy; she knows what she’s doing,” Casey added in a whisper.

Chuck blinked. That had sounded almost… The NSA agent wasn’t looking at him, but Chuck smiled at him anyway.

For a moment. Then a curse from Sarah made him whirl around. She was swinging from her harness, apparently having pushed off the safe - which was now slowly tilting forward. “Sarah!”

“Almost!” she spat, swinging forward and grabbing the handle on the safe again.

Chuck held his breath. The safe would topple over any moment now…

Sarah wriggled something in the lock, then put her boot against the tilting safe’s frame and pulled the door open.

But that was too much for the safe - it fell over - until the open door hit the ground and stopped the fall. And Sarah lowered herself further, and almost crawled inside the safe.

“No!” Chuck yelled. The door was already melting in the slime. All it did was slowing the collapse.

Next to him, Casey cursed.

“Sarah!”

She wasn’t listening. She would become trapped inside the safe, the slime would reach her if she wasn’t crushed first…

“Sarah!”

“Holy shit!” Faith was back, carrying a huge rock - as big as Chuck’s torso.

“Can you throw it and block the safe from toppling?” Chuck asked.

“Fuck, no!” Faith cursed, dropping the stone about two yards from the stairs into the slime. Then she stared at Sarah.

Chuck was about to yell at her to get the next rock when the door suddenly slipped, and the entire safe followed it.

“Sarah!” Chuck yelled as Faith jumped on the rock in front of them.

But in the last second, Sarah managed to push off and back, her foot almost getting caught by the safe’s frame as she swung back, dangling from her harness inches above the slime.

And Chuck started to breathe again.

“She’s got a book!” Faith announced, but he didn’t care. All he cared was that Sarah was safe.

“There was only one book inside the safe that looked old enough,” Sarah said as she reached them, patting the bag dangling from her hips which - supposedly contained the tome.

Chuck didn’t even bother looking; he moved to hug her. “Don’t do that again!” he whispered. “I almost died watching you.”

“She almost died doing it,” Faith said. “Now stop hugging and let’s see if you got the right book.”

As it turned out, it was the correct book.

Chuck still didn’t care.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 14th, 2007**

“So, Morty was the cultist leader… or the cultist Frankenstein. Or both.”

“Martini,” Dawn corrected Buffy.

The Slayer glared at her. “Anyway, Marky made those constructs. And had the book in his safe. And with his body being slime-food in the lair below, that’s one loose end tied off already,” she declared. “Good work, spies!”

“I was there as well,” Faith added from the counter, where she was emptying an entire bottle of ketchup on a stack of half a dozen hot dogs.

Chuck cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we have this talk below? In The Castle, not the lair.” People would notice them. Had noticed them, actually - a security guard had come by but had left after being told this was a private party.

“And get ketchup stains all over your carpet?” Dawn shook her head. “The general’s been mad enough at us already.”

“We don’t actually have a carpet there, do we?” Chuck asked. He didn’t remember there being a carpet.

“I didn’t mean literally. But you know how messy hungry Slayers are,” Dawn went on. “They’ll get condiments all over your shiny computers.”

“Uh.” Chuck winced, then nodded. That was a good reason to feed the Slayers in Sarah’s store.

“Hey!”

“Let’s get on with the debriefing,” Casey snapped. And, wonder of wonders, the bickering stopped. Although with lots of pouting.

“Shouldn’t Willow be here for that?” Chuck asked.

“She’s renewing the sealing spell,” Buffy explained. “Xander and Caridad are covering her.”

“Oh.” Chuck frowned. Was that within the expected intervals, or was the frequency increasing? More than anticipated?

“Relax,” Dawn told him before he could work it out. “We got plenty of time to study the book and figure out how to banish the Lord of Slimey back to his home dimension.”

“Wouldn’t want to have Spygirl here have risked her life and Chuck’s sanity for nothing,” Faith added - apparently having finished her hotdogs already. 

“I’m not ‘Spygirl’,” Sarah said with a glare.

Faith chuckled and sat on the counter, letting her legs dangle. “You’re the only female spy here. And spy-woman sounds like a Marvel character.”

“Oh! Xander’s been rubbing off on you?” Dawn cut in. “You sound like an expert!”

The Slayer glared at her while Buffy snickered. “You can’t not pick stuff up around him.”

“Mhh.”

Faith rolled her eyes and jumped down. “Anyway. My job’s done. You don’t need me for the reading and studying stuff. I got the hungry taken care of. That leaves the horny.” She grinned at Casey. “You up for some fun, spyboy? Or getting cold feet?”

Casey bared his teeth at the Slayer. “I’m always up for fun.”

“Let’s go then. Your flat. Unless you want to do it on the fancy spy table below.”

“My apartment.”

Chuck sighed as the two walked out. There would have been no way for Mr Macho to turn that offer down. Not the way Faith had asked. But Caridad wouldn’t like it. Not at all.

“She’s not exactly thinking much,” Dawn said. “Not right after a fight.” She shrugged with a sigh. “She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

That wasn’t much of a consolation, of course. On the other hand, Casey was single. And it wasn’t as if Caridad had indicated any interest beyond Faith’s desire for some fun without ties. You couldn’t exactly claim dibs on people, after all. Well, some tried, but they usually grew past that after high school. Chuck sighed. “So, all we have to do now is to wait?”

“More or less,” Buffy said. “And celebrate your successful mission, of course! Drinks and food on the house!” she added with a beaming smile.

Sarah cleared her throat.

“Oops.”

“Well done, Buffy. Offer the spy-lady her own food and drink?” Dawn sighed. “Please excuse my sister. She doesn’t think at all.”

“Hey!”

*****

“...and then we heard the mission was a success and aborted our own,” Morgan finished his explanation. “And here we are!”

“The curator was receptive to our proposal in general, but grew, understandably, suspicious when young Mr Grimes asked for immediate access to the museum’s recently acquired collection,” Phil added.

“It wouldn’t have done us any good if we had been allowed to help catalogue it a week from now,” Morgan defended himself. “Besides, it all worked out!”

“We might have found other dangerous or valuable tomes,” Phil retorted. “The late Mr Graves was a known collector of the occult.”

“He was named ‘Graves’? That’s, like, almost a sure sign of badness,” Buffy said.

“You can’t judge people after their names, _Buffy_ ,” Dawn said.

“Of course I can - it works more often than not! And hey! Everyone judges me for my name!”

“Only until they know you.”

“Right.” Buffy nodded.

“Then they judge you for your character - or lack thereof.”

“Hey! Says Miss Sarcasm 2007!”

“Yes.”

Fortunately, Willow, who looked like she had just run five miles under the sun at noon in summer, Xander and Caridad’s return broke up the latest intra-sister conflict before it escalated to either a food fight or name-calling.

Unfortunately, Caridad sniffed the air, looked around, then at the door to the secret passage leading to the Castle.

“They went home,” Buffy answered her unspoken question with a grimace. “Mr Spy’s home.”

Chuck could see Caridad clench her teeth. And he wasn’t quite certain that the crunching sound was just his imagination.

“Please tell us how the renewing of the spell went, dear,” Phil said. “I believe Miss Rosenberg is set on starting her research immediately.”

“Oh, yes! You found the book, then? Great!”

“You just have to get it away from Dawn without her biting you,” Buffy said.

“Funny,” Dawn replied. “Very funny.”

“It should be.”

“Settle down! We’ve got research to do!” Willow looked better - but Xander was hovering near her and Dawn’s table, so that was probably just her enthusiasm pushing her.

Well, the Scoobies could handle that, Chuck knew. But that left Caridad. 

“We went down to the lair, and Willow did her thing. No demons or other threats were around, and I didn’t smell anyone else either. Then we came back,” she said in a flat voice. “I’ll go patrolling now.”

She was out of the door without waiting for a response. Chuck almost pitied the demons out and about.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 15th, 2007**

It was past midnight when they arrived home, and Chuck was feeling a weird mix of exhaustion and restlessness. Or nervousness. Perhaps some guilt, too, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong. And a lot of relief and worry whenever he thought of Sarah risking her life.

At least Ellie and Devon were asleep already, and Casey… Better not go there, he thought. Casey would be with Faith. Busy. And Caridad would be prowling the city for demons to kill, to vent her anger.

“Will Caridad be alright?” Sarah asked as they entered the apartment, as if she’d read his thoughts.

“What?” He blinked.

“She seemed quite upset when she stormed out. That’s not a good state to be in when fighting.”

“Oh.” Sarah was right - Caridad might be too reckless tonight. He drew a breath through his teeth. “Well, most demons will be hiding. Most dangerous demons. News of the Scoobies’ presence has made the rounds, so the smarter demons will have left or gone to ground.” So he hoped, at least.

“And the demons who think this is a good opportunity to attack?” Sarah asked. “The slime cultists weren’t particularly scared.”

“Uh…” He sighed and sat down on their bed. “There shouldn’t be any such demons left in a city with a resident Slayer?” He caught her expression and winced. There wasn’t much they could do but hope for the best.

Just as Chuck hadn’t been able to do anything earlier.

Sarah started to get ready for bed. Usually, that was a sight Chuck enjoyed very much. But today? He couldn’t help thinking of the safe falling on her, trapping her, crushing her… while he was watching, helplessly.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah suddenly asked.

Right, she was a trained spy. Noticing things was what she did. Like risking her life. He sighed again. “Will it always be like today? Being a spy, I mean.”

“You mean risking your life?”

“More like watching you risk yours,” he replied.

“Ah.” 

He didn’t like the way she paused. Not at all.

“Sometimes,” she went on. “Not every time.”

“But often enough.” He pressed his lips together.

“It’s part of the job,” she told him. “Spying is dangerous.”

“It’s not the danger I mind,” he replied. “It’s the feeling of being helpless. Useless.”

“You’re not,” she said, frowning at him.

“I know. Intellectually, that is.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I know that I - or, rather, the guest in my head - can help you. But it doesn’t feel like it, you know?”

“Casey and Lehane could only watch either,” she said. “There wasn’t enough room for two to work on the safe.”

“That doesn’t help,” he said.

“Being a spy means you’ll have to sit back and wait - or watch - as others risk their lives,” Sarah said. She was smiling, if a little sadly, but her tone was firm, or so he thought. “You can’t do everything by yourself.” She slid into the bed and under the covers.

“I know.” He didn’t sound petulant. Not really. But he didn’t know if he could bear it.

He did know, though, that he couldn’t bear losing Sarah.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, December 15th, 2007**

“We need more M72s,” Casey said. “And more grenades.”

“And an M2!” Summers yelled from the ‘temporary dorm area”, as the part of the base where the Scoobies on duty were sleeping - or sleeping on duty, as Harris called it - was called. By Harris, of course. 

Sarah rolled her eyes.

“And a Barret!” the blonde Slayer added. “And a minigun!”

“A minigun for a mini-Slayer?” Dr Summers had to add, apparently.

“Says Dr Beanpole.”

Sarah tuned them out. “Headquarters won’t like delivering so much ordnance without a detailed report,” she said.

“They do it all the time,” Casey replied. “Classified mission, end of story.”

“This time, the general herself doesn’t know about it,” Sarah pointed out. That meant bureaucrats would be encouraged to use whatever leverage they could get to gather information.

Casey didn’t try to defend Beckman, He grunted. “They still will have to restock or armoury.”

“Eventually,” Sarah replied.

“If they drag their feet too long, we can go through the Council,” Casey said.

Sarah looked at him and raised her eyebrows. After a moment, he frowned and glanced towards the locker area. Both of them knew the Slayers present would hear whatever they said.

That made discussing how they were relying more and more on the Council awkward. And they had to discuss it. They were planning to join anyway, but Sarah didn’t like getting manipulated. And she doubted that Casey liked it any better.

She finished filling out the requisition forms, changed into her waitress uniform, then headed upstairs. It was time to open the store.

Caridad was already there, heating up the grill, Sarah noticed when she entered Wienerlicious. The Slayer’s scowl only slightly lessened when she saw Sarah. “Morning.”

“Good morning,” Sarah replied.

Caridad grumbled something Sarah didn’t catch and didn’t think she needed to know. “Any progress on the banishing?” the Slayer asked after a moment.

Sarah shook her head. “Not that I’ve heard.” She hadn’t expected any, either. Rosenberg had been very tired, after all.

Caridad huffed. “They should hurry.”

Sarah couldn’t help thinking that the Slayer was more concerned about the Scoobies leaving the city as soon as possible than about banishing the Lord of Slime.

Caridad huffed again, then sighed and put the first batch of hot dog on the grill. Sarah was about to point out that they wouldn’t need that many hot dogs at this time in the morning - they wouldn’t open for fifteen more minutes, and they hadn’t many customers who wanted a hot dog for breakfast. Then she remembered that Caridad wasn’t cooking for customers.

Nor was the Slayer cooking for herself. Less than a minute after she had started grilling sausages, Summers appeared in the storage room, sniffing the air as if she were a dog. “Oh! That smells yummy!” A moment later, she was standing at the grill. “I’ll have two with everything!”

“Those are for me,” Caridad snarled. “Wait your turn!”

“Hey!” Summers shied away, raising her hands. “Didn’t you have breakfast already?”

Caridad’s answer was a growl.

Sarah was tempted to hand out some desserts as snacks but decided against it. That might only prompt the Slayers to raid the fridge as well as the hot dog supplies. If they weren’t already doing it. Sarah frowned, then went to check the fridge. And then fetched the forms to order more ice cream.

She was still sitting at her and Chuck’s break table, filling out the forms - and calculating how much of her budget this would take, and how she could explain that to the general without getting accused of graft - when Grimes entered the store.

“Wow! Did you guys see what Caridad did to Caritas? Oh, hi, Caridad! Impressive work, there.”

“Uh… thanks.”

The Slayer didn’t exactly look proud, Sarah noticed.

“You burned Caritas down again?” Summers exclaimed after swallowing her third or fourth hotdog. “Without telling us?”

“I didn’t burn it down!” Caridad replied. “I just had a fight inside.”

“But the club’s closed for a week!” Grimes said, smiling widely. “You must have completely wrecked the furniture!”

“I only put a bouncer through the stage when they interfered with my investigation. The rest were just tables and chairs. And the wet bar.”

“You wrecked Caritas? Without telling us?” Harris was standing in the door to the storage room.

“Don’t make it sound as if you wanted in!” That was Rosenberg. “It’s important to encourage demons to peacefully integrate into society. Caritas is a good first step, even if it isn’t - or wasn’t? - perfect.” She pushed past Harris to glare at Caridad. “Really, I found that Lorne is perfectly reasonable if you talk to him.”

“That’s because you’re Willow. Everyone’s reasonable if you ask,” Harris said. “Also, if the bar’s still standing, then you didn’t win the pool.”

“You bet on Caritas’s destruction?” Grimes asked. “After telling Caridad off for busting a few demons?”

“I started the betting pool, and I put down the rule that if you wrecked the bar, you couldn’t profit from it. That way, Buffy wouldn’t go and start trouble there,” Rosenberg said. She was blushing a little, though.

“You still expected it to get wrecked,” Harris pointed out.

“I was only being realistic,” the witch replied.

“Sure you were, you little bookie, you!” Harris grinned.

“Willow! Gambling! Betting money on others’ misfortune! I’m shocked!” Summers claimed with a gasp.

“Hey! You were the first to place a bet!”

“I trusted you to keep everything above board!”

“She’s sneaky. Always was. Did I ever tell you how she sabotaged our third-grade teacher’s lesson, then framed Cordy for it?” Harris chuckled.

“I had to! She was teaching from an outdated book! And Cordy was mean!” Rosenberg defended herself.

“You’re claiming self-defence?” Summers shook her head.

“Defence of others! I had already read the correct book.”

“And so you made them read a second book? That’s assault! Or torture!”

“That was your fault?” Grimed chimed in. “I’m still traumatised!”

“Hey! That was over ten years ago!”

“That we still remember it should tell you how traumatic it was!”

Sarah shook her head at the Scoobies’ antics. She’d seen worse, of course, from other spies or some soldiers - or marks. 

And she took note of the fact that none of the Scoobies mentioned Faith and Casey. Or teased Caridad.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 15th, 2007**

Chuck was wheezing like an old man when they neared their home. At least it was winter - if he were doing this in summer, he’d probably be dead. Of course, winter wouldn’t last forever, so he could only hope that he would be in better shape in a few months.

“Let’s slow down,” Sarah said.

“No!” he protested. “Let’s… fin…ish… this!” he managed to say.

“You’re about to collapse.”

“I… can… do…”

“Ellie will kill me if she sees you like this,” she interrupted him.

No - his sister would kill him. He slowed down. And sat down. “I was always a good runner. I let myself go,” he said after a minute when he had recovered his breath.

“You’re a sprinter, not a long-distance runner.”

That was true. If things went wrong in Sunnydale, you either managed to reach a safe place quickly or not at all. “I guess so…”

“You also doubled our normal distance.”

“We’ve been doing this for a while,” he said. “Time to step it up, right?” He looked at her. She wasn’t exhausted, but she was covered in sweat. And she looked beautiful. He was probably smiling like an idiot.

“That means adding a little, not doubling.” She smiled at him and sat down as well. “So… what brought this on?”

Uh. “Why did you let me double the distance, then?” he asked instead of answering her question.

“So you’d learn to listen to me.”

“I always listen to you!” he protested.

“Not when you’re set on something,” she replied. She was still smiling, though. “Which isn’t always a bad thing,” she admitted. “But when it comes to training?” She shook her head. “I know how to train.”

“And I don’t.” He sighed.

“You don’t. But you usually don’t overdo it either.”

Her smile had faded a little. And she was not quite frowning at him, but would soon enough - he knew that expression. Sighing again, he looked away before answering: “I need to step up my training.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t do anything against the slime lord. Couldn’t do anything,” he added. “You had to help me over the wall. You picked the locks - and I had to watch you almost get crushed and trapped in a pool of acidic slime.” The entire city was in danger, and he couldn’t do anything.

“You did help us getting the information we needed to find the book.”

“You could have done that without me,” he said. “Anyone could have played my role.”

“No one is irreplaceable. And you did well.”

He scoffed. “I don’t feel like I did well.”

“You’re still learning.” She patted his shoulder, then squeezed it.

“Not fast enough,” he said. He almost shrugged her hand off, but that would have been childish. Instead, he put his hand on hers.

“You’ll get there - as long as you don’t overdo it, and get yourself hurt.”

“I know.” He hoped so, at least. “It won’t be fun until I’m not just dead weight and a computer search algorithm.”

She snorted at that, and he smiled. “Chuck, you are doing great work with data analysing. Spies in training don’t get to do missions at all. You’re already pulling your weight.”

It wasn’t true, but it was nice of her to say so. He nodded anyway. “I’m not dying any more. Let’s go back?”

“Let’s.”

They walked - slowly - home, after a few stretching exercises. Chuck knew he’d be in pain the next day anyway, though he was fine right now. Which was enough.

But when they reached their street, Sarah tensed up. “Someone’s hiding in the bushes ahead,” she whispered.

Uh oh. Chuck couldn’t see anyone, but he trusted her.

“Keep walking,” she went on. A glance told him that she had drawn one of her knives hidden in her belt bag. “But stop and tie your shoelaces at the tree there.”

That would provide him with cover against most guns, Chuck knew. But it also meant he’d stay safe while Sarah would rush in. Again. 

But he had no choice - she was counting on him not doing something stupid.

So he knelt behind the tree and announced. “Just a second! Have to tie my laces!” While Sarah used the cover to get into the bushes herself.

Chuck waited a few seconds. Sarah would reach the assassin at any moment...

“Chuck?”

He blinked. That was… “Devon?”

He peered around the tree. Yes, there was Captain Awesome, smiling at him. And behind him, hidden in the bushes and looking at Chuck as if this was his fault, was Sarah.

“Chuck! I was waiting for you! You took longer than usual for your run.”

“Uh, yes. We took a longer route. You know, gradually increasing the distance.”

“Already? Good for you! Ellie will be so proud! We can start running together soon!” He looked around. “Wasn’t Sarah with you?”

“Uh…” Chuck glanced behind Devon, but Sarah had disappeared into the bushes again. “She had to, uh…”

“I thought I saw a cat in the bushes,” Sarah announced as she reappeared to Chuck’s left. “Hi, Devon.”

“Hi, Sarah!” Devon looked around. “Uh… mind if I take Chuck for a moment? I have to discuss something with him. In private.”

“Of course now,” Sarah said. “I’ll go look for the cat again, then.”

Which meant she’d be keeping an eye on them. But as long as Devon didn’t know that, and didn’t realise how close he had come to getting beat up - or worse - by a trained spy, it was fine. Or so Chuck hoped.

“So… what’s up?”

“Ah.” Devon looked actually nervous, Chuck noticed. “Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? No, no.” Devon shook his head. “I just… You know, you’re the man in the family, right?”

Chuck blinked. What did…

“So, I’m asking you for the hand of your sister.”

*****

“He wants to marry Ellie.” An hour later, back home, Chuck was still struggling with the news. 

Sarah, of course, had adapted very quickly. “They’ve been living together for years. I would have thought you’d have expected this.” 

And she was probably getting a little tired of his reaction, Chuck realised. He sighed and leaned back on the couch, not even watching the tv. It was a rerun anyway. “I know I should have,” he admitted. “In hindsight, well… yes. But things haven’t changed much since I moved into this apartment after… Stanford.” Remembering his expulsion still hurt. Even after knowing Bryce’s reasons - if those hadn’t been a lie. He sighed. “Nothing really changed, actually.”

She leaned against him. “And nothing will change. They’ll keep living together in the apartment next door. The only thing that’ll change is that they’ll be wearing rings, and Ellie might change her name.”

He looked at her, frowning. Not that she could see his face since her head was resting on his shoulder and she was looking at the screen. Marriage was supposed to be a big change in your life. A commitment to a partner. A symbol. Something that mattered more than sharing an apartment. And… “Kids.”

“What?” She pulled away and looked at him.

“They’ll have kids. Probably. I think. That’s what happens when you marry. Well, unless you’re a rich old man marrying a twenty-something model. Then it’s a divorce. Sometimes after they have a kid or two.”

She laughed at that. “Kids with their schedules? Can you see either Ellie or Devon stop working?”

He gasped. “You’re right. They’ll want us to babysit.”

She started to laugh again, then stopped. “You’re joking.”

He shook his head.

“They can’t expect us to babysit,” she insisted - though she sounded doubtful. A rare occurrence.

He grimaced. “Did I ever tell you why Ellie’s pet rabbit started following me around in her senior year in Sunnydale?” Until one morning, only some bloodstains were left in the broken cage in the backyard, but that was neither here nor there.

Sarah sighed. “You had to take care of it while she studied so she would get the grades needed for a scholarship.”

Of course she’d know that. He nodded. “She said if I had time to raise animals in games, I could take care of a real animal as well.”

“Great.”

Well, at least she was sharing his worries now. “Well, if Ellie hears that Devon asked me for her hand in marriage before he asked her, there might not be a wedding,” he said. Ellie wasn’t fond of sexist traditions, as Willow would put it, and she would probably never stop thinking of Chuck as her little brother in need of some mothering.

They had a short laugh about that.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 16th, 2007**

Willow was looking exhausted again, Chuck noticed when he entered Wienerlicious for his mid-morning break. “Renewed the spell?” he whispered as he approached the counter.

“Yes,” Caridad answered from the grill, her Slayer hearing easily picking up his question. She was looking angry, so Casey and Faith were probably back. Or not. Same result, either way.

Chuck tried to calculate if the frequency of renewals was increasing, but he didn’t know how much time had passed since the last time Willow had had to renew the spell.

Or how many coffees she’d had - there were half a dozen empty cups on her table. Wait a minute. Willow and coffee? “Did she drink all of these?”

“It’s decaf,” Caridad whispered.

“And she hasn’t noticed?” he whispered back.

“Of course she did, but she’s acting as if she didn’t so the placebo effect will kick in.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” he said.

“We’re all just waiting for her to fall asleep so Buffy can tuck her in and Dawn can keep working on the anti-slime ritual,” Caridad explained.

“Ah.” He looked around

“Sarah’s downstairs. Paperwork.”

Spy paperwork, then. He nodded.

“You’re early,” Caridad said. 

He knew what she meant - Sarah usually was around when he arrived - and shrugged. “They’re still fixing stuff in the Buy More, so I took an early break.” Before Big Mike tried to make him supervise the repairmen. That wasn’t his job, and anyone could check if they tried to steal stuff. Well, given the theft rates, not all of the staff could, but Chuck had assigned one of the more dependable staff members to that job. The stock in the broken shelves was already written off, anyway.

“There!”

He turned, but there was no sign of Sarah. Ah. Willow had fallen asleep. And there was Sarah, wearing her waitress uniform, coming out of the storage room behind Buffy.

He smiled at her. Until he realised that her smile looked rather forced. “Uh… did anything happen?” he asked while Buffy carried Willow downstairs and they reclaimed their break table.

“Beckman called,” Sarah said, ignoring Buffy’s ‘General Grumpypants!’. “She told me that a new agent has been assigned to the station.”

Oh. “Uh… when will they arrive?”

“Tomorrow.”

“What?” That would complicate matters. “What’s the agent’s name?” he asked.

“Kirsten Bane.” Her voice was dripping with scorn.

He flashed.

*****


	11. The Season Part 6

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 16th, 2007**

Chuck blinked, shaking his head as the Intersect stopped dumping information into his mind. “Wow.”

“Wow?” Sarah asked.

“Bane’s got an impressive file,” he told her. 

“Really.”

Oh. She didn’t sound impressed or amused. “I mean… She’s not as experienced as you are. But we’re not getting a raw recruit.”

“Is she trustworthy?”

“I didn’t flash on anything connected to Fulcrum,” he replied.

“Fulcrum? That sounds like a bad-guy-acro-thingie.”

And Buffy was listening in. Chuck winced. Granted, the Scoobies knew about the Intersect already - Caridad certainly did - and probably about Fulcrum, but this still felt like a security leak. Which was his fault.

“Oh, don’t worry, my lips are sealed!” Buffy mimed zipping her lips. “Totally silent! Like a… uh, like a totally silent girl. That’s me.”

“And totally convincing,” Dawn said. “Not.”

“Hey! I so can keep a secret!”

Chuck sighed. “So, is Willow now resting?”

“Yes, she is. Like a baby. Sleeping, that is,” Buffy said. “Well, actually, she’s sleeping much better than a baby - those usually cry a lot and wake up everyone. Dawn was especially bad.”

To Chuck’s surprise, Dawn only glared at Buffy The Slayer, in turn, even looked a little guilty. He shook his head - it was none of his business. The Scoobies had a lot of baggage - like pretty much every Sunnydale survivor. “So… any chance that you’ll be done with the slime problem before our new co-worker arrives?”

“Oh! Will she be working at the counter here as well?” Buffy asked.

“No, she won’t,” Sarah declared before Chuck could tell Buffy that this wasn’t really the point.

Dawn laughed. “Bet she would look cute in the uniform. Who had the idea of using this as a cover, anyway?”

“Someone working for the general,” Sarah replied.

Chuck cleared his throat. “Since everyone’s evading the question, I take it you don’t expect to be done by tomorrow?”

“Depends on whether or not we find what we need in the book you recovered. It doesn’t exactly have an index, and the documentation of the rituals in it isn’t really up to university standard, either,” Dawn said.

“Excuses, excuses,” Buffy said.

Dawn sent her another glare, then rolled her eyes. “We’re working on it, but any prediction would be about as precise as Windows’s update prediction.”

Which was actually more precise than most people thought, but Chuck knew from experience that trying to correct people about such things wouldn’t achieve anything. “So, we can just hope you’ll get lucky?”

That caused a round of snickering between the Summers sisters. So much for Dawn’s vaunted maturity.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 16th, 2007**

They hadn’t gotten lucky, as Chuck put it, by the time Sarah parked her car at their home. She blinked. Home? Was it her home? She hadn’t had a real home in… well, too long to think about it right now. And the apartment didn’t feel like home. Chuck, on the other hand...

“I wonder if Devon has asked Ellie yet,” Chuck said, stretching next to her car.

“If he has, we’ll know.” Should have known already, actually - that’s what messages and phones were for, after all. But perhaps Ellie and Devon wanted to tell such news in person.

Or not - since they weren’t ambushed on the way to their apartment by a beaming, happy couple. She sighed. A little distraction would have been nice.

“What’s wrong?” Chuck asked as he closed the door.

She looked at him and felt the urge to sigh again. He was so smart, yet so naive in some aspects. “We’re getting a new agent while we’re in the middle of an unsanctioned operation with a foreign strike team, as Beckman called the Scoobies.” A not altogether incorrect term, of course, even though all of the Scoobies present were Californians.

“Yes. Not exactly good timing.”

She rolled her eyes at that. “She’s a spy, Chuck.”

“Yes? I mean, of course, and for Beckman, I realise that,” he added, sounding a little annoyed.

“Good.” She sat down on the couch. “You saw her file.”

“Yes. She’s an experienced spy.”

Not as experienced as Sarah, but that wasn’t the point. “She’s a honey trap, Chuck.”

He blinked, then held up his hand. “I know what that means. But why...”

“Why are they sending us a spy specialising in seducing marks to gather information or gain access to restricted areas?”

He nodded. “I mean… we already did such missions, sort of.”

Those hadn’t been real honey traps. But that wasn’t the time to educate him on the differences. “She’s here for you.”

“What?”

She suppressed a frown. “They want you, Chuck. Or, more precisely, they want the Intersect in your head. And since your ties to the Council means kidnapping - or killing you - isn’t a good option, they’ll try to turn you.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. You’ll be her target, Chuck.”

“Ah.” He smiled. “But since I’m now forewarned, that won’t work, right?”

Once more, she suppressed a frown. That shouldn’t have been a question.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 17th, 2007**

Chuck was in a good mood as he approached the Buy More. The morning run had gone well - they hadn’t overdone it - and the night before… He had to make an effort not to grin stupidly. Wow! Things were looking up.

The store was back to normal, too, he noticed - the last aisles had been restocked, and the holes in the walls repaired. They were still down two - Casey was ‘sick’ for the duration of the ‘Slime Crisis’, and Jeff was still hiding, although from the Slayers this time - but otherwise, things were back to normal.

“Chuck! Chuck!”

Like Morgan having a problem. “Yes, Morgan?” Chuck smiled at his friend as Morgan rushed up to him.

“We need you!” he whispered. “I just heard that Dawn and Willow found the correct ritual, so they’re doing it now, but we need more people to watch out for them while they do the ritual.”

“Well, Casey…”

“We need all three Slayers in the ritual - Rule of Three, Bane of Slimes, something something, Dawn said. Or Willow. That means Casey can’t come or Caridad and Faith will have a go at each other. And Sarah’s stuck at the store while Caridad is away. That leaves Xander, Phil and me.”

“And me,” Chuck said with a sinking feeling.

“Yes,” Morgan nodded emphatically. “Make up a house call in the system and let’s go!”

“Uh…” Chuck winced. So much for a good day. But ensuring that the city wasn’t buried under slime and eaten by a demon took precedence over a lazy morning. “Alright.”

*****

“I was told that we would be guarding a ritual,” Chuck muttered twenty minutes later, deep under the Buy More. He was gripping a flamethrower in his hands, the muzzle aimed at the entrance of a tunnel. It was an unwieldy weapon, but, as Xander had told him, it was one of the best weapons to use in a tunnel if you were facing demons and weren’t a Slayer with superhuman reflexes and aim. And he had used one before, at his graduation.

“We are,” Morgan replied, fidgeting with his own flamethrower next to him. Phil and Xander were covering the other tunnel leading to the cavern.

“No one said anything about guarding naked women,” Chuck told him through clenched teeth. No wonder the Scoobies thought Casey’s presence would lead to violence!

“It’s due to the symbolism of returning to the natural state,” Morgan said. “Or so I think. I didn’t exactly study magic rituals.”

Which was a good thing, of course - bad things happened to amateurs when it came to rituals. Xander’s experiences were proof of that.

But knowing that behind your back, five naked women were kneeling in a pentagram? That didn’t make it easy to focus on guarding them. He clenched his teeth. He was - training to become - a spy. He could focus on his task. 

Although a little distraction wouldn’t go amiss. They had tripwires in the tunnels anyway, courtesy of Xander. “What language is that?” he asked as the chanting grew louder behind them.

“Sumerian.”

“Isn’t that one of the languages that only spell trouble?” Buffy had claimed that if Chuck recalled correctly.

“They’ve adapted the ritual. Translating it would have taken longer,” Morgan said.

Considering the fact that the Scoobies had stayed in The Castle and Wienerlicious, where Chuck spent considerable time - more than Morgan, in any case - it seemed that Chuck had been out of the loop with regards to the ritual. Had that been deliberate, or had it just been a coincidence? 

And was it a good or a bad thing that Chuck was worrying about such things, and not about possible demon attacks?

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 17th, 2007**

By the time Sarah and Chuck’s usual break time came around, he still hadn’t returned. She knew that the ritual was supposed to take a few hours, and that he was with the Council’s best, but… If it were perfectly safe, if the had sufficient security, they wouldn’t have needed him. And flamethrowers? She shook her head and hoped he’d be back safe and sound, and soon.

Movement drew her attention. Someone was coming towards the store. No, not someone. Kirsten Bane. The agent hadn’t made much of an effort to disguise herself. Large sunglasses - not unusual in Los Angeles, especially among the starlets and wanna-be actresses - and the kind of clothes you saw in the gossip pages. Usually next to articles reporting about stars who couldn’t handle their fame, Sarah thought. Bane didn’t look like an anorexic starlet, though. She looked athletic, with a healthy tan and a chest that would fit in with every other boob job on the West Coast. Like a cheerleader in her twenties hunting for a sugar daddy.

Or a nerdy intelligence asset.

“Hello! I’d like a Virginia Special,” Bane said.

Whoever had chosen the codewords must have been the same agent who had chosen the store as a cover.

“Of course. If you’d like to wait here,” Sarah replied, pressing a button to alert Casey.

Bane looked around, and Sarah saw her polite smile twist into a smirk as she took in the store’s interior before making a point of looking at Sarah’s uniform. Which hadn’t been chosen by Sarah, anyway.

Perhaps she should reconsider having Bane not work a shift in the store.

The door to the storage room opened, and Casey appeared inside - not visible from outside the store, of course. He nodded at Bane. “Down here.”

“I’m coming. Just waiting for my hot dog.”

Sarah blinked. Was the agent really expecting her to fry a hot dog?

“Just maintaining my - our - cover.” Bane flashed pearly-white teeth at Sarah. “And I’m feeling a little peckish.”

Oh, yes, Sarah foresaw a sudden need for Bane to take over a shift at the store. Definitely. Just to maintain her cover, of course.

*****

The lunch rush was coming up when Sarah’s phone received a message. Chuck! 

_Coming back. All done._

She closed her eyes and sighed with a smile. He was safe. And the city was safe. And the rest of the group, presumably, was also safe. She made a quick mental calculation. Moving cautiously, it took about ten to fifteen minutes to reach the ritual chamber. She shook her head; it was still weird to use that term seriously. Adding some time spent cleaning up after themselves - and dressing again, she thought with a frown; apparently, the ritual had to have been done in the nude - Chuck would be back about… Right when the lunch rush started.

She hesitated a moment. Maintaining your cover was something that was ingrained in any good spy. It was why she was here and hadn’t gone down with Chuck. And yet… Screw this!

She quickly finished the order for the two students in the store, then ushered them out and hung a ‘technical difficulties’ sign Chuck had made for her as a joke on the door before she went down to The Castle.

“...this looks quite advanced,” she heard Bane say as she descended the stairs. “Better hardware than at headquarters.”

“Yes,” Casey replied. The NSA agent sounded a little more curtly than Sarah had expected. He would have realised Bane’s actual mission, of course. And he might have decided that one jealous Slayer being angry at him was enough, she added to herself with a snort.

“Ah, Agent Walker. Is something amiss in the store?” Bane asked with a fake smile.

“Nothing, though I closed it for the time being.”

“Oh?” Bane raised her eyebrows. “Why would…”

“The mission’s done?” Casey asked, interrupting the other spy.

“Yes. They’re on the way back.”

“The mission?” Bane frowned.

“Weren’t you briefed?” Sarah asked with her best ‘honestly puzzled’ tone. “There was a weapon of mass destruction hidden in Los Angeles. The terrorists responsible have been dealt with, but safely defusing the weapon required further action.”

“While you were minding the store and Agent Casey was giving me the tour?” Bane sounded doubtful.

“Yes,” Casey said in a flat voice.

“I see,” the other spy said, though Sarah thought she was bluffing. Besides, who cared about their reputation when they were already set to leave the agency and join the Council?

She still wanted to teach Bane a lesson, of course. This was her - and Casey’s - mission, and no ignorant latecomer would take over. Or take Chuck.

“What kind of weapon of mass destruction was it?”

“Classified,” Casey grunted.

“I’m cleared to know,” Bane retorted.

“Not even General Beckman has the needed clearance,” Sarah pointed out. She wasn’t smiling. Well, perhaps a little.

“But you know.”

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

They stared at each other. Bane was about to look away when they heard the door to the store open. Followed by the Scoobies’ voices.

“I told you: piece of cake.” Dr Summers.

“We had to use the flamethrowers, though.” Harris.

“To burn down some plants blocking the tunnel. That doesn’t count!” Rosenberg.

“There was no such stipulation,” Harris retorted. “And the plants were probably mutated.”

“Nothing mutates that quickly, and I sealed the entire area before anything could get into the tunnels!” Rosenberg huffed. “Pay up!”

“There were contaminated traps in the area. They would have had enough time to affect the… Ah, hello! You must be the new agent,” Harris said with a smile. He looked a little singed, but not seriously hurt. And Sarah didn’t smell anything but flamethrower fuel and smoke, either.

Bane blinked but quickly recovered. “That is correct,” she said with a practised smile. “Kirsten Bane. And you would be?”

“Harris. Xander Harris.”

That caused a round of giggles among the rest of the Scoobies. Sarah didn’t check if Bane showed any sign of being annoyed. Chuck was there, bringing up the rear with Grimes. 

*****

“Chuck!” Sarah didn’t quite rush into his arms, but she pretty much pushed through the rest of the group without taking her eyes off him, Chuck noticed. And she carefully looked him over once she’d reached him.

“Uh, I’m OK,” he told her, shifting the strap of the flamethrower’s tank a little - the damn thing got heavy after an hour or so. He should have burned off some fuel himself and lightened the load, but that might have reduced the oxygen down there a little too much after Xander’s stunt. “Really,” he added in a softer voice.

“Good.” She ran her hand over his arm.

“But I need to drop this before I collapse.” He wasn’t entirely joking, either.

“Mr Bartowski?”

Apparently, Bane had already arrived - and was headed towards them. She was wearing nice clothes - tight jeans, tight top, ankle boots. Something Sarah might wear as well, he thought. And very well. “Yes, Agent Bane?”

“You’ve seen my file, of course.”

“Comes with the territory, so to speak,” he replied. He would have pointed at his temple, but he was still holding the flamethrower with both hands.

“I wasn’t aware you were doing field missions. Of that nature, I mean,” she said, looking at it.

He shrugged, then struggled not to wince when the motion made the damned straps dig further into his hurting shoulders. “I do what’s needed for the mission.” That sounded professional, didn’t it?

Bane was smiling at him, but Sarah was frowning. Almost glaring. Apparently, it hadn’t sound professional, then.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, December 17th, 2007**

“Ah! I needed that!” Chuck heard Buffy announce as she stepped out of the locker area. “Shower’s free, by the way,” she added, but Dawn was already pushing past her. “You really need more showers in your lair,” the Slayer added.

“Or make the one you have bigger, so we can share it,” Faith said with a leer. “Save water, and all.”

“I don’t think that’s what people had in mind when they talk about saving water,” Willow replied.

“Well, pity for them,” Faith retorted, craning her neck while she shifted a little on the seat she had commandeered, both boots on the table. “Of course, he shower’s not that small,” she said, glancing at Casey with a smirk. “We might give it a try anyway, if you’re up for it.”

Chuck didn’t think it would work - Casey was built, after all, and Faith, while no amazon, was a little taller than Buffy. Although there might be positions...

Caridad stood abruptly, interrupting his wayward thoughts. “I’ll go home to shower,” she spat as she stomped out. Chuck glanced at the floor to check if she had damaged it, but saw no dents. Phil quickly followed her.

Faith shook her head, chuckling until she noticed the disapproving looks Buffy and Willow sent towards her. “Hey! You were the ones who told me that you can’t call dibs on people.”

“That wasn’t exactly what we meant,” Buffy said.

“It was about respecting the right of self-determination, instead of trying to throw people over your shoulder and carry them off,” Willow added.

“Well, that’s what I’m doing.” Faith turned towards Casey. “And you’re very self-determined, aren’t ya?”

“Huh?” Casey looked startled for a moment. “Yes, of course.” Was he having second thoughts? More second thoughts?

“Although Caridad had a good idea: What do you say to blowing this joint and calling it a night at your flat? I’m in the mood for some post-mission celebrating.”

Casey’s second thoughts took second place, it seemed, since the man stood. “My shift’s about over, yes.”

“Good.”

As the two left as well, Chuck saw Bane shaking her head. The new agent didn’t quite look shocked, but she didn’t look as composed as she had at the start either. “Won’t there be a debriefing?” she asked. “I know I’m not cleared for it, of course.”

“We came. We spent far too long in dusty tunnels dealing with icky stuff. Then we were done,” Buffy said.

“And we had to burn some plants to secure our route,” Xander added. “Mission accomplished.”

“And briefing done!” Buffy announced.

“It’s a debriefing, Buffy,” Willow corrected her.

Judging by Bane’s smile she didn’t realise that the Scoobies weren’t making fun of her - well, they were, but this was their real debriefing. Chuck cleared his throat. “So, Agent Bane, do you have any questions about the station?” He noticed that Sarah was glaring at him again and quickly added: “I mean, within the constraints of or regulations.” Which should have been implied.

“How much longer will this facility be hosting our… allies?”

“Scoobies. Our official designation is ‘Scoobies’,” Xander replied before Chuck could.

“Giles would never let you make this official,” Buffy retorted.

“That’s not what our records say.”

“What? But… Oh. Computers.” Buffy shook her head. “That’s a dirty trick.”

“Yes.” Xander grinned.

Bane didn’t. She looked distinctly not amused, Chuck noted. And probably still hadn’t realised that the Scoobies weren’t - just - kidding.

“We’ll be out of your hair in a day or two, Agent Bane” Willow said.

“Depending on how long it takes for everyone to stop whining about whatever hotel we pick,” Xander said. “And whether or not we get to stock up on hot dogs before we leave.”

“Oh… no more free food.” Buffy pouted.

“Hotels have buffets,” Willow pointed out.

“Not all of them.”

“The good ones all do. It’s sort of a requirement,” Xander said. “Of course, some take a dim view of people cleaning out the buffet by themselves.”

“That was one time! And I still say they were in the wrong - if you announce an all-you-can-eat buffet you should deliver!” Buffy declared.

Bane had stopped smiling by now. Chuck didn’t think that that was a good sign.

*****

Bane had finally lost her fake smile, Sarah noted with satisfaction. She wasn’t overly fond of the Scoobies’ antics, but if they were aimed at the right target...

She stepped forward. “So, with the debriefing done, shall we start preparing your relocation to more comfortable quarters?”

Summers blinked, then nodded. “Yes! The beds here are too hard, anyway!”

“Wimp.” Dr Summers must have finished her shower.

“Says Miss ‘I need my caffeine just so’!” Summers retorted.

But the Slayer was moving towards the area the Scoobies had taken over, presumably to start packing.

“Oh… Faith left without taking all her weapons!”

“No pinching stuff!” Rosenberg yelled. 

“I’m not! But She should have packed up her stuff!”

“Don’t be a baby. Just pack it up.” Sarah caught a glimpse of Dr Summers drying her hair.

“She’ll complain about me touching her stuff,” Summers replied.

“She only does that to rile you up,” Rosenberg said, walking over.

Harris sighed, shaking his head. “No foreplanning there.”

“I heard that!” Summers yelled.

Harris chuckled.

Bane cleared her throat. “Your team seems a little… lively.”

Harris turned towards her, grinning. “Oh, we’re all about the living. First rule: Don’t die!”

“A sensible rule,” Bane agreed.

“Yes.” Chuck nodded. “Not dying is good. Essential, even.” He stretched. “So… party tonight?”

“As usual,” Harris replied.

“Party?” Bane asked.

“A traditional end-of-mission party,” Harris explained. “Good for morale.”

“Ah.”

“Would you mind keeping watch here while the rest of us celebrates, Agent Bane? You weren’t on the mission. It’s not an order, though - you have just arrived, after all, and will need some time to get acclimated, I guess..” Sarah smiled at the other spy. And even more when Bane shook her head.

“No, no, it’s OK. I can handle it,” Bane claimed.

Perfect. It wasn’t as if the spy could refuse - not without making a bad impression on Chuck.

“Thank you, Agent Bane. That’s very nice of you.” Chuck smiled at her.

“It’s my pleasure.” Bane flashed a sickeningly sweet smile at him. “You’ve certainly earned a celebration - not many agents, much less analysts, would dare to go on a field mission with a flamethrower.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” Chuck said - was he blushing? Sarah narrowed her eyes. “It’s all hands on deck in such a situation, after all.”

“It’s still brave - you could have kept watch on the base, couldn’t you?”

“Uh, that would have been…” Chuck coughed, awkwardly smiling at Sarah. “It wouldn’t have been optimal.”

“Ah.”

Sarah frowned. There were very good reasons she had stayed back instead of going with Chuck. Someone had to maintain the cover for the base. Especially with a new agent arriving - who could have been a mole. Still could be, of course.

“So, let’s go eat lunch,” she declared, reaching for Chuck’s hand. “We can keep the store closed for the afternoon. And we need to change.”

She dragged him off to the locker room area before he could do something stupid, like inviting Bane along.

“Whoa… you’re really hungry, are you? Or were you really worried?” Chuck whispered as they reached their lockers.

“Worried,” Sarah said. It wasn’t a lie.

“Sorry.” He smiled at her, then reached out to hug her, and she felt a brief pang of guilt for not being completely honest with him. But she couldn’t speak freely with a Slayer in the base.

“It’s OK,” she whispered. “Now, at least.” After a moment, she pulled away and added: “Let’s head home and take a shower first. I smell like a fryer, and you smell like…”

“A gas station?”

She nodded with a laugh.

“Ah, we could shower here and then hit a restaurant on the way back,” he said.

And leave him to Bane while she was showering? Certainly not! She shook her head, then stepped up to him again, whispering in his ear: “We can share the shower back home.”

“Oh…” 

Seeing his silly grin, she knew there wouldn’t be any problems with leaving Bane for today.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown, December 17th, 2007**

The Scoobies had rented a small restaurant for the party. Situated at the edge of Downtown L.A., it didn’t look particularly expensive - and wasn’t, as a quick check of their website had revealed - and it didn’t have an impressive view of the town, squeezed as it was between two taller buildings. But it was private and had a well-worn charm, sort of. A little like the Bronze, Chuck thought, not for the first time, with some nostalgia. Just without the regular demon attacks.

Not that he had been a frequent visitor to the club in Sunnydale, anyway. Gaming nights had been more important, and the few times he and Morgan had visited usually hadn’t turned out well.

But this was different. They were celebrating saving the city. Stopping an apocalypse - his third after the Mayor and Wolfram & Hart. How many could boast of that? Well, boasting might be a little… boastful. And not in the good sense. But he had done his part, small as it had been.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

He looked up. Sarah had returned from the bar, holding out a drink to him. Whisky Cola. Much more cola than whisky, Chuck believed. He didn’t mind - getting drunk wasn’t a good idea in general, and specifically not around the Scoobies. Or at night. Or both, as was the case.

“I was just woolgathering for a moment,” he replied. “You know, lost in thoughts like old men.”

She chuckled at that as she took her seat next to him, crossing her legs. Which were clad in very tight leather pants. He focused on her face as he took a sip from his drink.

“You’re not old.”

“I feel old,” he replied, nodding towards the impromptu dance floor the Slayers had created by moving a few tables. Buffy, Faith and Caridad were dancing as if it was a competition. It probably was, for Slayers - they tended to see contests and challenges everywhere.

The rest of the Scoobies had taken their short turns on the floor and were now watching the three, amused or exasperated in Dawn’s case. Though Chuck thought that that was faked. Or not, since Morgan was talking to her while Xander and Willow seemed to be Slayer watching with the occasional quips being exchanged. Phil had excused himself a little earlier, citing the need to write a proper report.

And there was Casey. Standing at the bar, looking rather stiff for the amount of drinks he had downed so far. The agent wasn’t the easiest man to read Chuck knew - that dubious honour belonged to Andrew - but Chuck was certain that the only thing keeping Casey from leaving was his macho pride. And the knowledge that a Slayer would track him. Two Slayers, probably.

“That’s not going to end well, I think,” Sarah commented in a low voice. Possibly low enough not to be overheard even by Slayer ears so close to the oversized speakers Xander had brought. Which, Chuck realised, might have been brought just for that purpose.

“I think so too,” he replied in a whisper. Then he blinked. Didn’t he once read that whispers carried farther than a low voice? Did that apply to Slayer hearing? Perhaps he should have asked Willow for a privacy spell, if such a thing existed in the first place.

“Nothing we can do,” Sarah said. Which probably meant ‘nothing we should do’.

Chuck nodded anyway. “At least the new agent wasn’t as bad as we expected,” he said to change the subject.

“Chuck.” Uh-oh. He knew that tone. And that expression. “She’s behaving exactly as predicted - doing her best to make a good impression and gain your trust.”

“Uh.” It seemed that he had missed that. Well, there had been the ritual, so he had been a little tired and distracted. On the other hand… “Wouldn’t anyone try to make a good impression the first day on a new job? Well, other than Casey, perhaps.”

Apparently, that wasn’t funny. “Chuck. She’s been assigned to us after Beckman got told off by the Council. She’s an expert on seducing people to manipulate them - and we don’t have a mission in need of such a speciality. She’s here to seduce and turn you.”

He took a swallow from his drink. If she put it like that… But, anyway. “Well, forewarned is forearmed. She won’t succeed, so her being nice won’t hurt us.”

Sarah took a swallow from her own drink. A rather large one, Chuck noticed.

Then the music stopped, and the Slayers seemed to take a break. And headed towards the bar. Where Casey was standing.

“Uh…” Chuck started to stand up, but Sarah’s hand on his arm - holding his arm, with quite a strong grip - stopped him.

“Don’t,” she hissed.

“It’ll come to blows!” He retorted.

“And you’d be in the middle of it.”

“But…” He had to do something. Caridad was a friend. As was Faith, sort of. And Casey was a team member.

“Summers isn’t doing anything either,” Sarah pointed out.

He blinked. Buffy was watching - from a distance. She nodded at Chuck before turning her attention back to the trio at the bar. And Morgan wasn’t moving either.

Sighing, he sat down as Sarah released his arm. This was… He shook his head and finished his drink. And wished he had Slayer hearing. Faith was hanging all over Casey. If he had been sitting, she’d be in his lap. But the agent seemed uncomfortable. “You wouldn’t have some spy gadget to listen in?” he whispered. “Parabolic mic?”

“Not on me,” she replied.

“Pity.” And the Intersect wasn’t any help either.

Caridad was about a yard from the couple - if it was still a couple - and was glowering and glaring, or so it seemed, at everyone nearby. But mainly at Casey. Faith pulled back, frowning. She nodded towards the door. Casey hesitated, raising his glass to his lips. His empty glass.

And Faith tossed her head and started for the door. Uh-oh. Chuck pressed his lips together. This wasn’t the time to comment on Slayer attitudes. Really not the time. 

Buffy followed Faith out, nodding at Chuck - and Sarah - as she passed them. Chuck was confused for a moment. Until Buffy turned at the door and looked at him, then at the bar before she left. Oh.

Sarah sighed. “Our turn it seemed.”

“Ah…” Chuck licked his lips. “So… how do we split? Spies or sexes? I mean, do you talk to Casey and I to Caridad, or do you have a girl talk with her and I get maimed by an angry NSA agent?”

Sarah looked at him for a moment, then sighed. “Talk to her. I’ll handle Casey.”

Chuck stood and started towards the bar. “And then we switch in halftime!” 

It wasn’t a good joke, but Sarah snorted anyway as they approached the bar, empty glasses serving as an excuse.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Caridad hissed before he could say anything. Slayer hearing, probably. Or Chuck had been too obvious.

He did his best to look puzzled. “I wanted to ask you to dance,” he lied. Which wasn’t a half-bad idea, now that he thought about it. Slayers were physical people, prone to go stir-crazy if they couldn’t move, burn off their energy. Or so Willow had said, once. Dawn too, probably.

She snorted, then glanced at Casey, who was glaring at Sarah. “Let’s dance then.”

And they were off to the improvised dance floor, right when the music changed again to something rocky. Great. Chuck wasn’t a great dancer. Not even a good dancer, to be honest. But he did his best to move with the music while trying to think of a way to talk to Caridad without making things worse.

At least Sarah was doing better with Casey - the two were drinking together at the bar. Although… they didn’t seem to be talking much. Well, Casey was the silent, violent type. And there was the fact that Caridad would hear everything they talked about.

Well, nothing he could do about that. They danced for two more songs - about ten minutes - before Caridad stopped and took a deep breath. “I need some fresh air.”

“Good idea.” Chuck nodded and followed her after exchanging a glance with Sarah.

The street outside was not quite deserted, but there were few pedestrians, and only a handful of cars passing. Caridad leaned against a lamp post. “Some time ago, I would have been thrilled if you asked me to dance,” she said without looking at him. “Even if it was out of pity.”

“Uh…” He swallowed. Honest, be honest, he reminded himself. “I’m your friend. And it’s not pity. More… damage control.”

She snorted. Once. Still, progress. “I’m not going to attack anyone. I’m not stupid.”

“No one thinks you’re stupid.”

She turned towards him. “Faith told me I was stupid.”

Ah. “She says a lot of things she doesn’t really mean.”

“She lies less than others,” Caridad retorted.

“Ah. But you’re not stupid.”

“I was.”

He bit his lower lip to refrain from making a stupid joke. Quips didn’t always help in tense situations. “How so?”

“Casey.”

“Ah.” That didn’t tell him anything.

Fortunately, she elaborated. “I like him.”

“We noticed,” he commented.

That earned him another snort. “He’s tough, skilled, experienced, and he has a dark sense of humour.”

Chuck managed to stop himself before he blurted out: ‘He does?’

He must have given something away since she frowned and added: “He does. And he isn’t taken. Wasn’t taken.”

“Uh. I don’t think Faith is looking for a long-term relationship,” Chuck pointed out.

“But I am.”

“Ah.” Things started to make sense. Sort of. “And you think Casey isn’t, since he, uh, hooked up with Faith.”

She looked quite vulnerable as she nodded.

Chuck suppressed a sigh. He was pants at this sort of talk. At least Sarah had an easier time with Casey.

*****

“She’s gone outside,” Sarah told Casey after she had watched Caridad leave the restaurant with Chuck in tow.

“With your boyfriend,” the agent replied. “Aren’t you concerned?”

“No.” She gave him a look. She trusted Chuck. And if he were interested in the Slayer, he would have returned Caridad’s affections long before she had met him.

Casey scoffed. “Figures.” He grabbed another drink from the bartender.

Sarah took a sip from hers as she studied the agent. He was hard to read, but he seemed a little off. “What happened?” she asked. Straight and to the point might be the best strategy.

“I fucked up.”

Yes, he did. But she didn’t say that. She took another sip and waited instead.

“I shouldn’t have started anything with Faith - Lehane. It’s unprofessional. You don’t date your co-workers.”

She took a swallow from her drink. Chuck and she weren’t like that. “That’s not the issue,” she told him, narrowing her eyes at him. “The issue is that you didn’t sort out things with Caridad before you had some ‘fun without strings’ with Lehane. Or whatever you call a series of one night stands.”

He glared at her and ordered another drink.

At least Chuck was having an easier time with Caridad.

Or not, she corrected herself when she saw Chuck return without Caridad and wearing a rather dejected expression. She glanced at Casey, who was ignoring her, then grabbed a second drink for herself and another for Chuck and went to join her boyfriend at their table.

“I hope your talk went better than mine,” he said, taking his drink.

“Casey’s being stubborn,” she replied, sitting down.

“Caridad’s out venting her frustration on demons,” he told her. “I didn’t find the right words.”

“Sometimes there aren’t any,” she said. And killing demons seemed to be the standard Slayer therapy.

“I know,” he said. “But I should have been able to tell her more than some platitudes about how things will work out in the end.”

She wrapped her right arm around him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Sometimes, they do.”

But she didn’t think they would in this case. Not with Casey.

“Hey, at least we saved the city,” Chuck said.

“Good point,” she agreed with a smile.

Compared to preventing Los Angeles from being drowned in demon slime, being unable to solve a love triangle was a minor thing. At least in Sarah’s opinion.

*****


	12. The Gift

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 17th, 2007**

By the time they finally arrived home, Chuck was feeling better. Dancing with Sarah usually had that effect, and he had enjoyed talking with Willow, Xander and Dawn, too. They’d head back to London respectively Cleveland soon, and there wouldn’t be a chance to just hang out and reminisce about the good parts of Sunnydale. Few as they were.

But now his bed was calling. Strongly.

“Chuck! Sarah!”

Not as strongly as Ellie, though, who was waving at him and Sarah. Obediently, they changed course and headed towards his sister’s apartment. “Ellie?”

She held up her hand, grinning widely. “Devon asked me to marry him!”

Sarah squeed in response - if Chuck hadn’t known better, he would have been convinced that this news had come as a surprise to her. He had to make do with blinking.

Fortunately, Ellie took that as the shocked reaction she’d expected. “It was so romantic! He took me out to our favourite restaurant, and then we drove to the beach where he went down on one knee and presented me with the box! The ring, I mean.”

Part of Chuck wanted to know which beach, and if the sun had gone down already - some vampires liked to hunt at the beach; it was easy to dispose of corpses there, especially if you didn’t need to breathe, and the authorities would assume a missing person had drowned instead of suspecting a crime. 

He ignored that part. “That’s great, Sis!” he announced, hugging her. “When’s the wedding?”

“We’re thinking spring. Organising will take a lot of time. Fortunately, Devon’s parents will be helping.” Her smile slipped a little - as always when she was reminded of their own parents’ demise.

Chuck nodded. “Well, we’ll help, of course!”

After a moment, Sarah nodded as well. “Of course.”

“Thank you!”

She hugged both of them. “Now come inside! We want to celebrate!”

“Uh…”

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 18th, 2007**

“Come on, Chuck, time for our morning run.”

“I can’t run. I’m busy being dead.” Chuck felt dead. He’d had… well… four or three hours of sleep by his count. He squinted at the alarm clock. Five hours? It didn’t feel like five hours. And his mouth felt as if something had crawled in and died there.

He blinked. Were there demons who did that? “Oh my God!” He quickly sat up and started towards the bathroom, but crippling headaches stopped him. “Oh my God.”

“Chuck?”

“Don’t mind me, I’m busy dying from demon poison.”

“You’ve got a hangover. You won’t die.”

Oh, yes. Now he remembered - Devon had had to show them his awesome new cocktail recipes. And Chuck had had to try them. He groaned. “Devon will lose his license.”

“What?” Sarah asked. Far too loudly, in his opinion.

“He violated his Hippocratic oath. First, do no harm, right? Serving us those cocktails most certainly did us harm,” Chuck explained.

“You weren’t forced to drink all of them.” She shook her head but made no move to help him.

He laid down again on the bed. “Peer pressure. And you were there, so it’s your fault, too!”

“Get up, Chuck. We’ve got to be at work in an hour.”

“We can call in sick. It wouldn’t even be a lie,” he replied.

“Get up, Chuck.”

She was a slave driver. He got up.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 18th, 2007**

Chuck had managed to survive the first part of his shift in the Buy More. Sending off everyone who got close to him with an errand or two had driven off most of those who’d disturb him, and ‘testing VR goggles’ - a set of night vision goggles on which he had glued some Sony logos - had allowed him to take a nap for the rest of the time. Who’d have thought Morgan’s tricks to catch up on some sleep after a night spent gaming or working with Phil would be so useful?

Still, Chuck wasn’t exactly a hundred per cent fit when he entered Wienerlicious.

“Hi, Chuck. Wow, you look like shit!”

And Caridad looked far too chipper for a heartbroken Slayer. He didn’t say that, of course. “Hi, Caridad. Where’s Sarah?”

The Slayer pointed at the storage room with the concealed stairs. Downstairs, then. It was their usual break time, but if Sarah was in The Castle, then Chuck probably should go down as well.

Sarah was there. So was Bane, though.

“Good morning, Mr Bartowski!”

“Good morning, Agent Bane.”

She didn’t comment on how he looked. Since she was a spy, she hadn’t missed that but was ignoring it. “Hi, Sarah!”

“Hi, Chuck!” Sarah smiled, but it looked a little forced.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. It’s good news, actually.” Her smile didn’t change. Bad news then. Chuck steeled himself. “Congratulations to your graduation from Stanford.”

He blinked. “What?” Graduation? He had been expelled from Stanford years ago. How could he have graduated? And without realising it?

As if he had asked the question out loud, Sarah went on: “You were expelled shortly before your graduation because of Bryce framing you.”

Bryce. His former best friend. Now dead in the line of duty. “Yes.”

“So, the CIA pulled a few strings to explain your innocence to the dean, which led to your expulsion being reversed.”

“Years after the fact?” Chuck asked.

“Well, while they weren’t exactly at fault, it would look very bad to a jury if they didn’t do what they could to undo the damage caused by this.” Sarah smiled, though more than a little cynically.

“Ah.” Money talked. “But I was expelled shortly before graduation - I hadn’t actually graduated.”

“That’s the second thing the CIA did,” Bane cut in. “We arranged for your stellar work for us to be accepted as practical studies. That awarded you enough credits to graduate.” She beamed at him.

“Oh.” Chuck blinked.

“You were working with the most advanced electronics in the world, after all, on various missions. You identified, countered and even took over sophisticated security systems. That perfectly fits the requirements for practical studies at Stanford,” Bane went on. “Congratulations, Mr Bartowski.”

He had done it! He had graduated! After all those years… “Thank you!” He smiled widely. He was no longer a dropout!

“And here’s your diploma, Chuck,” Sarah said, handing it over.

He took it - already framed. And an expensive frame, too. “Wow! Ellie will be over the moon.” He blinked. “Oh… what do we tell Ellie? We can’t tell her I graduated thanks to my work for the CIA.”

“You can tell your sister that you had been working for a while on reversing your expulsion, and had, in anticipation of a positive decision, filed for a practical studies credit,” Bane explained. “Everything will check out, I can assure you of that.”

“Wow. You’ve thought of everything.” Of course, Chuck knew how good the CIA was with creating covers. Arranging a graduation wouldn’t be a challenge for them.

“It was the least we could do for you, Mr Bartowski.” Bane nodded. “You’ve more than earned it, too.”

“Indeed,” Sarah said, though her smile still looked a little forced. “Which is why you’ll also get a nice sum for the emotional and financial damage you suffered due to Bryce’s actions.”

“You made Stanford pay?”

“No. It wasn’t their fault, after all,” Bane replied. “And we would rather not strain our good relations with the faculty. No, the agency is taking responsibility for Agent Larkin’s action, although officially, it’ll be paid by a fund of the bank where he was officially employed. That way, you can also access the salary you’ve earned as a civilian consultant without the IRS asking questions.”

“Ah. Convenient.” And very welcome, especially with Ellie’s wedding coming up. 

“Of course, going forward, we’ll have to find another cover for your income,” Bane went on.

He almost said that the Council could handle that, but given what the CIA just had done for him, that would have been gauche. “I’ll worry about that then,” he said instead. “It’s not as if I’m going broke.”

“Unlike the Wienerlicious,” Bane replied.

“What?”

“We’re not going broke,” Sarah said with a glint in her eyes. “We simply need a little more money than was budgeted to cover the additional expenses incurred during the last mission.”

“Ah.” Apparently, feeding three Slayers was even more expensive than Chuck had thought.

“And it’s a drop in the bucket compared to restocking our armoury,” Sarah said.

“An also unexpectedly high rate of consumption for which, I have to remind you, you still haven’t accounted,” Bane said.

“It’s classified,” Sarah told her with a toothy smile. “Now, come, Chuck, we’ll celebrate later, but we can take our break now.”

Her smile hadn’t changed, which made it clear to Chuck that refusing wasn’t an option.

“Congratulations, Chuck!” Caridad greeted him as soon as he stepped into the store.

“Thank you,” he replied. “Did you know?”

“I heard,” she said with a grin.

Slayer hearing, of course.

Sarah wasn’t looking happy as they took their usual seats. “What’s wrong?” he asked after the first sip from his cola.

“The Agency’s trying to bribe you,” she said.

“What? You mean I haven’t actually earned the diploma?”

“What?” She shook her head. “No, of course you did. But the fact that they are doing this now? And the convenient laundering of money? They’re trying to butter you up. Bane, the diploma, the money - and the hint that future payments need another cover. Like official work for the CIA, perhaps?”

“Oh.” That made sense. “But since I now know about that, it won’t work, right?”

Once again, Sarah didn’t look as if she agreed.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 18th, 2007**

“Oh, Chuck, this is wonderful! Devon, come, look at this! Chuck graduated from Stanford!”

Yes, Ellie was over the moon. Chuck smiled as his sister showed his diploma to her boyfriend. Her fiancé, he corrected himself. Future husband - Chuck had to get used to the thought. He glanced at Sarah and noticed that she was genuinely smiling.

“Now you’ll be able to quit the Buy More and get a real job!”

Uh. Chuck felt his smile slip. He hadn’t considered that reaction. In hindsight, that was a very obvious mistake. “Uh, Sis, let’s not be hasty, OK? The Buy More’s a real job - I’m an assistant manager. And it counted for Stanford.”

“What?” Ellie frowned at him. “It’s a dead-end job! You want to be Big Mike in twenty years? Or run your own software firm?”

In hindsight, telling his sister about his dreams might have been a mistake as well.

“I agree, Chuck. You need to find a better job,” Devon cut in, handing the diploma back to Chuck. “No offence to your colleagues, but tech support isn’t a Stanford graduate position. You need an awesome job! And you’ll get one!”

Chuck would get an awesome reaction if he rendered all the effort the CIA and NSA had made to protect him and hide his identity obsolete. The Castle alone would have cost a fortune. “Look, let’s not rush things! I’ve got a decent job, things are stable - there’s time to carefully consider my future. Our future,” he added, wrapping an arm around Sarah’s waist.

“Oh, of course!” Ellie looked a little guilty. “I guess you’re growing up.” Not too guilty, though. 

“How did you manage to get your expulsion reversed?” Devon asked. “Stanford wouldn’t have been eager to admit a mistake.”

Fortunately, they had prepared for that line of inquiry. “Oh, in the aftermath of Bryce’s death, apparently several unsavoury things he had done came to light as his affairs were settled, and the police contacted me. Virginia’s, not ours,” he clarified. “I couldn’t tell you since it was an ongoing investigation - they were very clear about that. Sorry.”

“We understand,” Ellie said, still smiling. “I knew the man was a rat.”

A spy, actually, who died on a mission. But that was classified. “And afterwards, well, I had already contacted Stanford, but I didn’t want to raise your hopes in case it didn’t work,” Chuck went on.

“But it all worked out,” Sarah added. “And now he’s a Stanford graduate!”

“Larkin was a banker, wasn’t he?” Ellie frowned. “I read his obituary. You should sue his estate and get compensation for the damage to your reputation, the loss of income, and the time you lost until you could graduate..”

“Already handled, Sis,” Chuck said. “I have a settlement with the bank. It’s not as big as it could be, I guess, but I didn’t have to sue and pay half of it to my lawyer.” He handed over the balance sheet.

“Chuck!” Ellie looked at him, then at the sheet, then back at him. “With that amount, you could found your own firm!”

“Well, a very small firm,” Chuck said. “And I’d have to work out of my apartment.”

That’s how Apple got started,” Devon pointed out.

“And they almost went broke a few times, I think,” Chuck retorted. “Let’s not spend all at once, hm? We also have your wedding to consider, after all.”

“Oh, that’s another piece of good news!” Ellie said. “I almost forgot - we got a notice today. Apparently, Dad had set up a fund for such an event, without telling us so we wouldn’t feel the pressure, but there’s enough money for a dream wedding!”

What? That was a little too convenient. And where would Dad have gotten the money? They’d had to struggle after his and mum’s deaths. Wouldn’t he have used the fund to provide for his orphaned kids, first? 

Chuck exchanged a glance with Sarah. She, too, looked like she suspected something.

“Uh, Sis, which firm was handling the fund?”

“Bradbury and Lem, here’s their letter,” Ellie replied.

‘Bradbury and Lem’? Had Dad picked them because they had the same names as two classic science fiction authors?

Or was that a front? They’d have to investigate.

“Don’t worry, we’re only using half the fund - the other half is reserved for your own wedding,” Devon told him with a smile, derailing Chuck’s thoughts.

His own wedding? They weren’t planning his wedding, were they?

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, December 19th, 2007**

“Bradbury and Lem is a front,” Sarah said as she dealt out several sheets at the planning table in the base. “Their records check out, but all they do is holding money in escrow for ‘selected clients’.” 

“With the right clients, that should be lucrative,” Chuck pointed out. “Also, probably illegal.”

“Exactly,” Bane said. “Money laundering and black books.”

Sarah frowned. She had spent most of the day researching this - this was her intel. “More or less. We haven’t found any evidence of such activities, but we haven’t checked their books yet. But their CEO is a lawyer who will sign anything for money and is the official CEO of several dozen firms all set up in a similar way.”

“A true entrepreneur,” Chuck quipped. “There’s a demand, and he provides the service. Pure capitalism.”

Casey growled at him and showed his teeth at the dig. “It’s a crime, not capitalism.”

“More importantly than discussing politics,” Sara nipped the discussion in the buds before it could escalate, “we need to investigate them and uncover who’s behind the money - and what their goals are.”

“Didn’t your father go missing?” Bane asked. “It might be him, using the firm to keep his identity and current whereabouts secret.”

Sarah pressed her lips together. Chuck’s dad had gone missing in Sunnydale.

“My father’s dead,” Chuck said in a flat tone.

“Presumed dead,” Bane tried to correct him. 

The agent didn’t know about demons and Sunnydale. If not for the pain this was causing Chuck, Sarah would have been happy about Bane putting her foot in like this.

She spoke up again: “Speculation without any evidence or information won’t serve us. We need to investigate this firm.”

Chuck smiled at her as Bane frowned. The agent recovered quickly, though. “Of course. This presents a clear threat to Mr Bartowski’s cover - and to his family.”

“At least it’s not Fulcrum,” Chuck threw in. “If they did suspect me, they would attempt to kidnap me.”

Sarah winced. He wasn’t completely wrong, but there were several reasons for a more subtle approach. It could be a test for a theory and a distraction at the same time. On the other hand, setting up such a payment took quite the effort - and they would have had to care about Ellie’s upcoming wedding. And Fulcrum had, at least in the past, used far more direct means. Although they might have lost too many assets or had a change in command resulting in a different tactic. “We’ll have to be certain not to tip our hand,” she said. “Someone might be watching for signs.”

“Do you think your cover might be compromised?” Bane asked.

“No,” Sarah replied at once to the blatant hint. “But we’ve been operating in this area for some time, now, and basic analysis will show that.” And Fulcrum was bound to have more skilled analysts on their payroll.

“Your close relations might increase that danger.”

“My cover was chosen with that in mind.” Sarah smiled. “Fortunately, as things turned out.”

“Yes,” Chuck agreed with a smile, then frowned. “Wait… you’re not suggesting we break up, are you? I mean for show.”

“That would make it harder to work together and protect you,” Sarah quickly said before Bane could say anything.

“Nothing of the sort,” Bane said. “I was merely pointing out that your close relations mean that if one of you becomes compromised, it will endanger Miss Bartowski.”

Casey glared at her. “My cover includes being his co-worker and neighbour.”

“Which is another potential weak spot,” Bane retorted.

“Protecting the Intersect requires such close covers,” the NSA agent replied.

“Yes,” Chuck added. “We’re like, all-in. But we have a good hand. An excellent hand, even. And a few aces up our sleeves.”

Sarah smiled as she nodded. It wasn’t the best turn of phrase, but it fitted their situation perfectly, in her opinion.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Malibu Beach, December 20th, 2007**

“Well, apparently, signing anything put before you pays really well,” Chuck remarked as he took in Larry Grover’s home. It wasn’t a beach house, but it was close to the beach. Probably a third-tier beach house, if that was a technical term. And it had good security - the gate wouldn’t budge for anything short of a tank, and the walls looked massive, not ornamental.

“If it didn’t, the slimeball wouldn’t risk it,” Casey growled. “Also, get used to being quiet. The hired help doesn’t make jokes. Not in this business.”

“Got it,” Chuck replied, swallowing his comment about Casey’s unfortunate choice of words so close to the averted slime apocalypse. And about the fact that he wouldn’t actually go inside with Casey. “I’ll be a good criminal minion.” He fought the temptation to tug on his fake beard. He would much prefer to be in his Charles Carmichael persona - that would have allowed him to be with Sarah, too - but he’d had to talk fast to get onto this mission at all, seeing as it was aimed at his civilian life, despite him being the best hacker on the team. Even Bane, who supposedly was trying to earn his trust, had been against his participation. But Sarah had come around on his side - though she had insisted on Chuck posing as the driver while Casey and Bane went to meet Grover.

The gate started to open - they were expected, after all - and he drove the armoured SUV onto the grounds, stopping in front of the main entrance to let Casey and Bane out before parking to the side.

“We’ve arrived,” he said.

“Good. Do you see any guards?” Sarah, hiding under a blanket in the back, asked.

“No.” He took another look. “Just a security camera covering us.” As predicted. “Wait, there’s another one.” 

He flashed. “Shit. That’s a Hallwyl Custom system. The cameras we saw on the pictures are the decoys; the real ones are better hidden. Closed-circuit, with image-recognition and motion detection routines, and backup batteries.” Quite a good system. Not the best, of course, nor the newest, but better than expected.

Sarah remained unflappable, though. “Can you see their data lines?”

“Uh…” He leaned back, acting as if he were just a bored driver. If they had installed the lines inside the wall, that would… They hadn’t. “Yes, there is a metal pipe running down from the camera, disguised as a lightning rod.” Not quite sloppy, but Grover shouldn’t have tried to save money there - he could see the cable branch out to the camera.

“We’ll stick to the plan, then,” Sarah decided.

*****

Whoever had installed the security system was good, Sarah had to admit as she studied the wall through the tinted windows of the car. The two cameras - the visible and the hidden one - completely covered the parking area without leaving a blind spot - on this side.

But Chuck had parked the car at an angle that left a blind spot between the rear door and the bushes framing the parking area. She rechecked the angle of approach, then told Chuck: “Let’s do it.”

“Alright. Operation Distraction is a go.”

His smile was a little forced, but when he got out of the car, he looked like an average driver stretching his legs. Sarah watched him circle the SUV as she moved to the back. There he ducked, then straightened - any observer would see him noticing something near the undercarriage. Nothing suspicious.

And opening the rear door so he could get a towel to clean whatever stain he had noticed? Completely natural. And, thanks to the blind spot, no one saw her slipping out of the car and rolling into the bushes while Chuck ‘searched’ for a towel.

By the time he had finished cleaning the mud they had sprayed on before the mission, Sarah had crawled fifteen yards and was one dash across the small pathway circling the house from reaching the camera’s data line.

She should be in a blind spot, but she waited until Chuck opened the trunk to the car again, providing a small distraction, before she crawled to the wall. You could never be sure, after all.

The metal pipe looked strong - almost like a real lightning rod; it might even serve as one, which would probably fry the security system - but there was a gap at the bottom, and Sarah had no trouble connecting a small transponder. “Done,” she whispered into her radio.

“Alright,” she heard Chuck’s reply. “Give me… hm… that’s a standard… yes… almost… Oh.”

She clenched her teeth. Chuck’s sometimes-habit of commenting on his own work wasn’t as adorable in the field as it was in the kitchen.

“And done! We can now control the feed. Starting a loop.”

Good. Sarah had already connected another to the feed from the regular camera.

Five minutes later, both cameras were looped, and Chuck could leave the car without being seen. Sarah was picking the lock of the door facing the parking area - it had a security lock, so it took her a few minutes until she could signal to Casey and Bane that they had completed the first part.

Then they were inside, Sarah on point. The hallway behind the door was clear - no camera. That was a little sloppy. But then, they weren’t dealing with a spy, but a lawyer turned criminal. He probably didn’t want to be caught on his own cameras. Well, whatever his reasons, as long as it made it easier for her - not that she needed it - and Chuck, she wouldn’t complain.

“Are you sure his office is on the first floor?” Chuck whispered.

“Yes,” she hissed her reply. That was where the architect had placed it, and people like Grover tended to follow ‘expert advice’ - as they expected their own advice to be heeded.

Movement! Sarah pulled Chuck back into the hallway. Ah. She pressed herself against the wall as a woman carrying a tray with beverages and snacks walked towards the front of the house. Where the salon for visitors was located.

With the coast clear, they snuck upstairs by taking the smaller stairs next to the kitchen. Dashing past two guest rooms - which probably were never in use since there were two more impressive ones in the back - they reached the door to Grover’s office. No security there, but it was locked. Thirty seconds later, they were in.

“Whoa!” Chuck exclaimed - fortunately, in a whisper. “That’s a Ceres Hi-Power! Back when they came out fifteen years ago, they were top of the line! Morgan and I used to dream of owning one, but the manufacturer went bankrupt after a year.”

“Can you hack it?” This wasn’t the time of gushing over old computers.

“Uh, I should. I’m just saying that this is an almost priceless antique. It belongs in a museum.”

“Yes, Dr Jones,” she shot back. Antiques were older than fifteen years.

He blushed a little but started working on the thing. Sarah went to cover the door as he worked. They didn’t have all the time in the world - there was only so long Casey and Bane could drag out negotiations.

*****

Chuck realised straight away that this wasn’t an original Ceres Hi-Power. Someone had upgraded the software with a custom OS, or at least a shell - his usual exploits and tricks wouldn’t work here. He bit his lower lip. He could open the case and get the drives out, to crack them at the base, but… if someone went as far as to write custom programs, maybe even a custom OS, then they would have protected the dives against such tampering, too. Encrypted, perhaps even with a self-destruct system - he was pretty sure that the computer’s hardware had been updated as well; who’d focus on software and keep a fifteen-year-old core running? Outside businesses where the management saw the IT department as the best place to cut costs if the firm had troubles, of course.

“Chuck?”

“I’m thinking,” he replied. He couldn’t hack this. A quick attempt proved that. Not in the time he had. “Think, Chuck, think!” he whispered. The machine was too bulky for them to carry it off without getting noticed. But, perhaps… He grinned. The weakness in any system was the human factor. People were lazy, and Grover made his living by acting as a strawman for criminals, keeping their money for them without doing anything strenuous.

Would such a man practice basic computer security? Chuck didn’t think so. “There’s always a weakness!”

He looked around the desk upon which the keyboard and screen rested. Unfortunately, there was no post-it note with a password ‘hidden’ nearby - Chuck was quite familiar with the common spots where lazy users hid such information. Grover wasn’t as careless as Chuck had thought. Perhaps he had done the man a disservice, and Grover had memorised the password - he would have used it often enough.

Oh. Of course! He looked around, spotted the shelf in the back and grinned. “Perfect!”

“Chuck?

“I’m working on it,” he told her as he approached the shelf. And the latest expensive laptop perched there. A model Chuck knew how to crack since some people with more money than sense kept locking themselves out of their status symbol. 

Grover might have had enough sense not to write down his password, but Chuck suspected that the lawyer had used the same password on the laptop as he used on the Ceres. He picked the machine up and carried it to the desk so he could work on it. “Let’s see what you’ve got…”

To his relief, Sarah didn’t question his change of target. Chuck could crack the laptop’s laughable security in under a minute, but he took a little more time here - he couldn’t rush this. If whoever maintained the Ceres also ran Grovers other machines… But they didn’t, and Chuck managed to retrieve the password.

He turned to the Ceres and took a deep breath as he entered the password. “Here goes…Everything!” he hissed in triumph. “We’re in!”

He quickly called up the file manager - another custom job. He frowned. He had never seen that shell, but it looked familiar, somehow. And elegant. “Who made you?” he mumbled as he started a search - which ran faster than he expected.

“Bartowski… no code names for us? I almost feel insulted,” he joked as he connected a memory stick to the computer and started downloading the data. First, the files covering him and Ellie, then the rest - waste not, want not. The CIA would make good use of such compromising information, wouldn’t it?

He carefully put the laptop back on the shelf - exactly where it had been. More or less. Returning to the desk, he discovered that the data had already been copied.

“I’ve got to meet the programmer,” he mumbled as he pocketed the stick. If Windows were as quick to move files, his work would be much less boring. Well, his work at the Buy More.

“Done,” he announced - but Sarah was already moving.

Five minutes later, they reached the door to the parking area. Sarah held up her hand, and Chuck stopped, waiting in the hallway while she checked the outside. If anyone was waiting to ambush her… But no one was.

“Clear.”

Chuck held his breath as they ran, crouched, to the SUV. The cameras were looped, but that wouldn’t help if anyone outside, or at a window, saw them. But no one yelled at them - or shot at them as they climbed into the car, Sarah sliding under the blanket in the back again.

“Package secured,” Sarah reported to Case and Bane.

“Good,” Chuck heard the reply in his ear bud.

He started to relax, fiddling with his driver’s cap. Mission accomplished.

Then he berated himself - the mission could still fail. They weren’t in the clear yet.

*****

**California, Burbanks, The Castle, December 20th, 2007**

Chuck rubbed his chin and shook his head. This didn’t make much sense, as far as he could tell.

“Chuck? Is there a problem with the data?”

“Huh?” He looked at Sarah. “Yes. I mean, no, there’s no problem with the data. But…” He took a deep breath. “The funds sent to Ellie? They came from Grover’s very first client.”

“Oh?” Sarah frowned and bent forward to look over his shoulder.

He smelt her scent as he pointed at the screen. “See? The first files related to this client are at least a year older than any other files in the system.”

“He started with your fund. And branched out later,” Sarah said.

Chuck blinked. That made sense - only it didn’t make any sense. “Why would a criminal prepare funds for us? Fifteen years ago?”

Sarah looked grim as she replied: “I don’t know. But we’ll find out.”

*****

“Alright,” Chuck said a few hours later, “the funds weren’t marked for us fifteen years ago. The ‘Bartowski’ tag was only added a little while ago, probably when Grover received orders to arrange the payout.” He smiled, obviously relieved, Sarah noticed. “So, we weren’t marked by a criminal fifteen years ago. Whew!”

She hated to say it, but she had to. “But that means that someone who was hiding money from dubious sources fifteen years ago and probably started Grover’s entire business recently took an interest in you. Enough of an interest to move money out of their hidden funds.”

Chuck’s face fell. “They know that I’ve got the Intersect in my head!”

She put her hand on his arm, gently squeezing. “At most, they’ll suspect.”

“Which is bad enough,” Casey snarled. “If they’re part of Fulcrum…”

“But why would they pay for Ellie’s wedding?” Chuck asked. “And anonymously? They’d know that we’d not naively think they’re the good guys.”

“And as a bribe, it’s not really much,” Sarah pointed out.

“People have sold out America for less,” Casey said.

“But we wouldn’t!” Chuck said - a little heatedly. “And they’d know that!”

“It’s the first step,” Bane interjected. As everyone turned to look at her, she smiled, Sarah noticed. “A valuable gift or favour, but nothing overly generous. The recipient will be, even unconsciously, grateful. It gives you an in. All you need is a plausible story to explain why the mark received the gift. Then you build from there.”

The agent was probably quoting her own playbook. But she had made a good point, Sarah had to admit. This was an opening move. Someone was planning a long con.

“Can we, uh, interrogate Grover?” Chuck asked. “His security isn’t really up to snuff, is it? We could go in and grab him. Find out what he knows.”

Casey grinned. “Feeling a little vicious, Bartowski? Do you want to do the waterboarding yourself?”

Sarah glared at the NSA agent. Chuck was worried about Ellie, as Casey would know, but he wasn’t a torturer. Well… unless it was demons - Sarah remembered the demonstrations arranged for them.

“Kidnapping Grover runs the risk of alerting the donor to us,” Bane pointed out.

“And I doubt that he knows the donor personally,” Sarah added. “Whoever set this up was very cautious; they would know that Grover is the weakest link in the chain, and wouldn’t have let him know their identity.”

“But they installed the computer!” Chuck retorted. “That would have had to be done in person.”

“Hired help, nerd.” Casey scoffed. “Like your day job, just for criminals.”

“No, no, no, guys,” Chuck replied after a moment, shaking his head. “This wasn’t some tech support. Whoever rigged up this system was a genius. Not the kind of person you hire for some delivery and installation job.”

“Even geniuses can fall on hard times,” Sarah said. Like Chuck.

Chuck looked at her for a moment, and she saw him understand what she hinted at - his lips twisted in that forced smile of his. “Point taken. But the thing is, the ‘donor’ would know how valuable the ‘programmer’ is. Whatever they are doing for a living, a genius programmer and tech guy will help. A lot.”

“Trying to convince us or yourself?” Casey interrupted with a grin. Sarah felt a sudden urge to hit him. Chuck was turning into a good spy, even without the Intersect.

Chuck frowned at the man. “I’m not wrong. In any case, if Grover is a dead end - not literally, I hope - then whoever programmed this is the key.” He pointed at the screen. “That was fifteen years ago. They will have done other things. And they will have left tracks!” He tapped his temple. “And the Intersect is perfect for finding them!”

*****

**California, Burbanks, The Castle, December 23rd, 2007**

Another dead end. Chuck sighed. He had been so sure this would pay out. A selection of the best code from various skilled hackers, both the kind to make headlines and the ones working for various spy agencies.

And he had flashed, solving two high-profile hacks in the process. But there was nothing on the elusive ‘Baker’, as they had code-named the programmer - on Chuck’s suggestion, since Ceres, the goddess, had been synonymous with grain and bread in the Roman era. Not that anyone had cared. Not even Sarah. But she hadn’t been rude about it, unlike Casey.

He sighed again. He hadn’t found pieces of the Ceres code in commercial programs. Nothing distinctive, at least. And now the illegal programs hadn’t paid out either - not even the Intersect had helped.

He clenched his teeth. The Intersect was useless. He was useless. Ellie was in danger because of him, and Chuck couldn’t do anything. Useless!

“I don’t get it!” he complained.

“Hm?” Sarah looked up from her report.

“‘Baker’ started at least fifteen years ago, and we know he kept updating Grover’s computer regularly. That means he was active for one and a half decades - and yet the Intersect has nothing on the guy? It had data on a kid hacking his grades in high school in 2001!” It didn’t make sense. This was what the Intersect had been designed for, so why wasn’t it working? It was as if the Intersect was blind… “Oh my God!”

“Chuck?”

He looked at her as his stomach seemed to drop. “Sarah… who exactly created the Intersect?”

*****


	13. The Investigation

**California, Burbanks, The Castle, December 23rd, 2007**

Who exactly created the Intersect? It was a good question, Sarah had to admit. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s classified,” she added with a grimace.

“Oh.” Chuck blinked. “And whoever created the Intersect wiped themselves from their databanks, probably hard-coded a blind spot in the core of the program. No, they would have wiped their involvement from the databanks. Otherwise, we could find them by process of elimination - just find the programmer who doesn’t show up in the Intersect.”

“Yes.”

“But someone has to know who programmed the Intersect,” Chuck went on.

“Beckman probably knows,” Sarah said.

“Probably?”

“It was a black project and took years to build. Her predecessor might not have informed her,” Sarah explained.

“We can still ask, can’t we?” Chuck asked. Sarah must have betrayed her thoughts since he winced. “She will love to throw ‘it’s classified’ into our faces, right?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“That’s not very professional for a general,” he pointed out.

“But very common for a general,” Sarah replied. “The Pentagon politics make the Capitol look tame.” And the CIA politics were worse - literally lethal, at times.

Chuck sighed. “I guess we can’t interrogate her, hm?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. He had better be joking!

He raised his hands. “Kidding, kidding!” Another sigh followed. “But it’s our best lead. We need to find out if ‘Baker’ was behind the Intersect - and who they are.”

“We don’t have a lead, though,” she told him.

He clenched his teeth. “There has to be a way! Some hardcopy archives they couldn’t wipe.” His eyes widened. “Discrepancies between hardcopy and electronic records! If we compare them, we could find the blind spot - and the identity of ‘Baker’!”

It wasn’t a bad idea, Sarah knew. “That means we’d have to have access to the physical archives and the electronic data of the Intersect project. And hope no one wiped the hardcopy data to protect the project from scrutiny.”

“Oh.” He looked crestfallen. “I guess we’d need to talk to Beckman for that?”

“Unless you get the Council to pressure her into cooperating, yes,” Sarah.

“Hm. I don’t think that the Intersect falls under the Supernatural,” Chuck said. “I don’t think Giles would go for that. And it wouldn’t be fair to ask the Scoobies, anyway.”

Sarah was both disappointed and relieved.

“Could we follow the money?”

She shook her head. “Fifteen years have passed, and they’ll have taken precautions.”

“So… we can do nothing but wait until they make contact? If they make contact and don’t do anything more dangerous, instead.”

“We have to inform Beckman anyway. She might be reasonable.” Though Sarah didn’t think so.

*****

“You suspect that the same person who built the Intersect sent a significant sum of money to Bartowski through a lawyer known to handle such transactions for criminals?”

Yes, the general wasn’t happy. Chuck forced himself to keep smiling and looking sorry. In hindsight, they probably should have informed the general right away.

“Yes, ma’am,” Casey said.

“That’s our best estimate,” Chuck added. “It would explain why the Intersect can’t find this person.”

“That would have been deliberate sabotage of the project,” Beckman said with a scowl. “That’s a serious accusation.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s a theory. A theoretical accusation. A hypothesis,” Chuck explained. “Without knowing who programmed the Intersect’s core architecture, we cannot verify or disprove it.”

“I see.”

Did she? Chuck perked up.

“Unfortunately, the designer of the Intersect went AWOL before it was completed.”

“What?” Chuck blinked.

“They deserted?” Casey asked with a growl.

“Yes. They vanished ten years ago,” the General explained. “After wiping all the information about them from our databanks. We haven’t been able to catch them since then.”

“I’ve never heard about that,” Sarah said.

“Neither did I,” Casey added.

“It was kept quiet,” Beckman said with a scowl.

“The Intersect is ten years old?” Chuck asked. He ignored Casey’s ‘nerd’. That was… an antique.

“The core of the program is that old. But it has been continuously updated with the latest data,” the general said.

“How long did they work for the NSA?” Chuck asked.

“Five years in total.”

“That would mean… they contacted Grover right after or shortly before starting the work on the Intersect,” Chuck said. “They must have expected or even planned something like this.”

“And they haven’t been caught?” Sarah asked.

The general looked embarrassed. “They have been a step ahead of us for years - mostly due to their unparalleled mastery of computers.”

“And we don’t even know their sex?” Bane spoke up for the first time.

“We don’t. We only know their code name: Orion.”

*****

“So we’re hunting a phantom,” Chuck said, leaning back in his seat as soon as the general had ended the call.

“Not alone,” Sarah pointed out. “Several teams are on the same mission.”

“Technically,” Bane said, “we aren’t hunting Orion; we’re merely investigating a potential threat to the Intersect that might be connected to Orion.”

Casey’s snort summed up Chuck’s opinion of that. “And our investigation involves hunting them,” Chuck said. 

“It’s not as if we’re going to be coordinating with anyone,” Sarah said. 

“Certainly not when any electronic communication is banned because Orion might be listening in,” Chuck agreed, then blinked. “Say… didn’t the general violate that order by discussing this on a conference call?”

“She’s the one in charge; she can rescind and reissue the order as she sees fit,” Casey replied.

“Convenient,” Chuck said. “But what if Orion did listen in and now knows that we’re hunting them?”

“They would already be expecting that after sending money to Ellie,” Sarah pointed out. “Especially if, as we have to assume, they know that Chuck is the Intersect.”

Chuck nodded, grimacing. They had managed to keep the secret, but now an unknown party - a deserter from the NSA - was aware of it. And Ellie was in danger as a result. And it was all his fault. Partially, at least.

“But how are we supposed to do better than teams who have been hunting Orion for years?” Bane asked.

“We can hardly do worse,” Casey retorted.

“It’s hard to find someone who wiped all their data from our systems before vanishing. We don’t even know their sex.” Bane crossed her arms under her chest and faced the NSA agent.

“Well, Orion’s probably a male,” Chuck said. At the looks he received from Sarah and Bane, he added: “They hired him fifteen years ago. Back then, there weren’t many female programmers of that talent. Hell, Willow was probably the best - they sent the head recruiter for the world’s leading software developer to meet with Willow in Sunnydale High solely on what was known about her.” He blinked. “I’m so stupid!”

“Good analysis, Bartowski,” Casey grunted.

Chuck stared at him, then shook his head; this was more important. “I should have asked Willow about this. She was, well, more into the hacking scene back then than I was. She should know the big names.”

“Willow?” Bane asked.

Chuck suppressed a wince. He shouldn’t have revealed that. On the other hand, if a software firm knew about Willow, then the CIA probably did as well. And if Bane thought Willow was a hacker, she wouldn’t expect her to be a witch. “Willow Rosenberg, you’ve met her. If I hurry, I can catch them before they go on their flight.” He pulled out his phone.

*****

**California, Los Angeles International Airport, December 23rd, 2007**

Sarah smiled as she entered the lounge at the airport. Chuck probably hadn’t meant it literally when he spoke about catching the Scoobies before their flight - he really should have considered that it was the day before Christmas Eve, and the Scoobies wouldn’t be able to get another flight to be back in England in time for the holidays.

Of course, none of that would have been necessary if they could trust electronic communication. The Scoobies might have protections even Orion might not be able to circumvent, but the Burbank Station didn’t - and if anyone got into their files…

“Hey!” Chuck said, waving as he spotted the Scoobies.

“Hey yourself!” Rosenberg said, standing up. “What was so important that you had to meet in person?”

“Surprise Christmas presents?” Harris asked with a wide grin that didn’t reach his eyes, Sarah noticed.

Summers waved as she hastily chewed what looked like the remains of an entire club sandwich. Dr Summers merely nodded, as did Faith.

“Ah…” Chuck looked around. “Are we safe from listening devices?”

“That’s the first thing I did after your call.” Rosenberg nodded, then frowned. “Are you under CIA surveillance?”

“Ah, no.” Chuck shook his head, then looked around. “Let’s sit down.”

“How did you get into the lounge without tickets?” Summers asked. “Some special spy badge?

Chuck blushed slightly, Sarah noticed. “We kind of have temporary tickets.”

“There’s no such thing as… You hacked the booking computers!” Rosenberg announced. Loudly. But no one nearby reacted, though - whatever the witch had done must be working.

“Yes, but it was needed,” Chuck defended himself. “You see, we’ve got a problem. Ellie received a respectable sum to pay for her wedding.”

“That’s a problem?” Summers asked. “Or did you lose it, and need to recover it? Or was it meant for a mob boss who wants it back?”

“Buffy! Let him tell explain instead of listing the plots from cheap movies!” Dr Summers interjected.

Chuck cleared his throat. “Well, it might actually be dirty money. You see, when we looked into the origin of the money, we found out that...”

*****

“...and then I thought you’d know more than me about the kind of computer specialists who could do such a thing,” Chuck finished.

“Oh!” Sarah saw Rosenberg, who had been shifting around in her seat since shortly after Chuck had mentioned the Intersect’s inventor, nodded rapidly. “I do know - only out of interest, you know - most of the hackers of our time. The good ones, I mean - well, good in both senses; both skilled and not wanting to use their skills for evil, you know? I mean, some of the hackers were really bad. Not quite Sunnydale-bad, but really non-white hats. Black hats. Which, I just realised, sounds really racist. Oh Goddess, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it, but… Well, there was this hacker from Texas holding hospitals hostage until the FBI caught him, and...”

“Willow!” Harris interrupted her, “We do have a flight to catch, so best save the details for your report.”

“There’s a report?” Rosenberg gasped, then pouted. “Oh, you!”

“You’ll be writing a report on the plane, Red, don’t deny it.” Faith chuckled. Sarah couldn’t tell if the Slayer was still angry about the whole mess with Casey and Caridad, but she seemed to be trying a little too hard to appear laid-back.

“Well…” Rosenberg pouted again. “It’s still not nice!”

“Think of it as giving you an advance warning or a reminder,” Harris said as Summers patted Rosenberg’s hand. “So… summarise?”

“Ok.” Rosenberg sighed. “I can’t think of many hackers who would fit the requirements and aren’t either in prison, already very anti-authoritarian fifteen years ago, or publically known. I mean, some of the guys in prison might have done a deal with the government after getting arrested, but they were arrested years after this ‘Orion’ started working on the Intersect. They - the government - would have had to set up some cover story and probably sent someone to prison in their place, and why would they do that for someone who wasn’t known in the first place?”

“The government does a lot of stupid things,” Harris said.

The Scoobies nodded in agreement, and Sarah clenched her teeth for a moment. She disagreed with the general attitude, though this wasn’t the time or place to discuss this. And she was aware of a number of government screw-ups herself, of course. All classified, though.

“You said you couldn’t think of many hackers,” Chuck said. “That means you can think of some.”

“Well...” Rosenberg winced.

“Willow?” Chuck asked.

“Well, two are dead,” Rosenberg answered. “The L33t Ranger was murdered by the Russian Mob after exposing their off-shore accounts in 2001. And, well, your dad…”

Chuck froze for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “Dad was a good programmer. Not a hacker, though.”

“Uh…” Rosenberg grimaced. She really had no poker face in Sarah’s opinion. Unless this was merely a facade. “That’s not entirely accurate.”

“Willow! No movie quoting in delicate family situations!” Summers admonished her.

“I wasn’t! Was I?”

“ID4,” Harris replied.

“Oh.”

“Red.”

“I’m so sorry! Really! I didn’t want to make light of your loss, but…” Rosenberg shook her head. “Your Dad was a hacker. He caught me once when he was fixing the Sunnydale high school system.”

“You hacked the high school computers? But Dad was... when did you do that?” Chuck asked.

“I was twelve,” she replied. “And I wanted to know if Xander, Jesse and I would be in the same homeroom.”

“Or correct that if we weren’t,” Harris added, which caused Rosenberg to blush.

“Anyway, Dad’s dead, so who else did you think of?” Chuck asked.

“Well, the only one not confirmed dead or sold out to the man,” Rosenberg replied, “would be Infinity. They were quite good, and not as, ah, attention-seeking as most others. Though they haven’t been heard of in years.”

“That fits,” Chuck said. “Thank you, Willow.”

“I’ll contact you if I think of anyone else,” she said.

“Not electronically,” Chuck reminded her.

“Alright. I’ll send a letter.”

“By post owl?” Harris asked.

Since everyone laughed, Sarah assumed that it was a joke she wasn’t aware of. She could ask Chuck later, of course, without losing face. But there were more important things to think about, anyway.

Such as the question of whether Chuck’s father had actually died in Sunnydale. Chuck had said that his parents had _vanished_ , and if there was no body, you couldn’t be sure of anyone’s death. Sometimes not even if there was a body, if someone could fake or alter the right records.

But talking to Chuck about this would be difficult.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 23rd, 2007**

Chuck sighed and closed his eyes, letting his character get shot in the game. He heard complaints and curses from the other members of his team but ignored them. It was just a game, not the end of the world. Not really important.

But the chatter and curses were annoying, and so he switched off his computer. Let them assume he had been disconnected before he had stopped playing. It didn’t matter. He had real problems to worry about. Ellie’s safety. And the mysterious Orion’s goals. 

And yet, he couldn’t help thinking about Dad. That was Willow’s fault. He didn’t like to think about his parents. Their deaths, Ellie struggling to replace them, trying to take care of him, even though he hadn’t needed it - much. Sunnydale had destroyed their family.

If he were honest, he’d have to admit that it wasn’t actually Willow’s fault - Christmas, when families came together to celebrate, tended to remind him of everything that had gone wrong in Sunnydale. Still… He shook his head. Dad was dead. If he weren’t dead, he’d have returned to them. And he had been a programmer, not a hacker.

Not Orion.

“Chuck?”

Sarah. He smiled. “Come in.”

“Did you finish your game?”

“Oh, yes.” He wasn’t technically lying. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

She nodded, then took a seat next to him on the couch. She didn’t look happy.

He winced. “I guess whatever you found wasn’t good news?”

Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think you’re going to like it, Chuck.”

Shit. “Now I’m feeling even more apprehensive.” His eyes widened. “Wait! It’s not Elle, isn’t it? She’s safe, isn’t she?”

“Ellie’s safe,” Sarah quickly told him. He started to relax. “As far as I know.”

His relief vanished at once at hearing her qualifier, replaced by - now familiar - anxiety. “Great. So… shoot? Not literally, I mean. You know.”

“Yes.” 

She was still smiling in that particular way… she was nervous, he realised. A veteran spy, nervous. This must be really bad. He shifted a little on the couch.

She took a deep breath. “Chuck, I’ve checked the dates.” She hesitated. Again. “Your father vanished shortly before Orion started working on the Intersect. Shortly before Grover received the Ceres computer.”

He froze for a moment. “That doesn’t prove anything!” he snapped. Dad was dead. What did she think… No - he had to control his temper.

“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed. “But we can’t exclude the possibility that your father isn’t dead, but in hiding instead. It would explain the connection to your family.”

“But it wouldn’t explain why he went into hiding!”

“To protect you and Ellie, presumably.”

“What?”

“He was working on a top-secret intelligence project. Probably the most important project of the agency,” she explained. “If the CIA and NSA had known about his family, they would have sent a protection detail - or taken you into custody. Standard procedure.”

That wouldn’t have been too bad, Chuck thought. But… Sunnydale. “Spies versus vampires?”

She snorted, then grew serious again. “It would have made vanishing afterwards impossible. You and Ellie would have been leverage. And even if he had managed to extract you and delete your files, you’d have been forced into hiding with him.”

That would have been… well, Ellie probably wouldn’t have become a doctor. And he wouldn’t have been able to study at Stanford. Chuck nodded. Although… Sarah seemed quite understanding about what was, legally and effectively, treason, he noticed. Treason against the CIA, even. Well, she was the experienced spy of the two of them, and she had mentioned how difficult it would be to quit the CIA. But he had to focus on the subject at hand.

Chuck took a deep breath. “That assumes two things. First, that he was planning to desert from the project even before he began it. And second, that he cared enough about us to ‘protect’ us, but not enough to choose us over the Intersect.”

“He might not have had a choice, Chuck. The CIA or the NSA aren’t really willing to take ‘No’ as an answer if they consider you vital for national security. You would have been leverage or in hiding even if your father had refused to work on the project. And he would have been aware of it.”

That made… well, a warped sort of sense. Damned if you did, damned if you didn’t. But… “If he had done that, why didn’t he tell us?” Why would he have just left them? Let them think he was dead? If he actually was in hiding and not dead. Eaten by a demon in Sunnydale. 

“Chuck… you were kids. You wouldn’t have been able to keep the secret. And you’d probably have tried to find him, or contact him, if you’d have known.”

He pressed his lips together. He wanted to say that they wouldn’t have, but they would. Well, Chuck would have. Ellie might have been more sensible. “It’s still just a theory.”

“But it fits all the facts. According to Willow, your dad was a hacker. Good enough to catch her.”

“When she was a kid,” Chuck pointed out. 

“And yet, the Intersect didn’t find him when you were looking for hackers,” she replied.

That was true. The timelines added up. The lack of any data in the Intersect also fit. Willow’s information about Dad being a hacker. But… He shook his head, then looked at the now-dead tv screen. It couldn’t be true. “The Intersect also didn’t find much about ‘Infinity’.” Although enough to confirm their existence somewhere in Southeast Asia. “Dad’s been dead for fifteen years. At least that was what we thought.” It would be easier if his father were dead. Dead instead of hiding. Instead of being hunted. He shook his head again. He couldn’t think like that. First rule: Don’t die. Dead was bad.

She laid her hand on his arm. He looked at her for a moment, then she reached out and hugged him.

He closed his eyes, holding her. Being held. He wasn’t crying. Barely. Dad might - might! - still be alive. Not dead. Just the CIA’s most wanted.

He snorted. It almost came out as a sniffle. “What a mess.”

She didn’t reply. Just held him some more.

*****

“So, what do we tell the others? About your theory, I mean,” Sarah heard Chuck ask from their bedroom while she was brushing her teeth.

She finished while she pondered her answer. “You mean Casey and Bane, right?” she asked as she left the bathroom.

“Uh, yes. I mean - Morgan needs to know. He knew Dad, after all. And Caridad and Phil should know as well. Just in case, you know, it’s not Dad but something looking like him,” Chuck said. “And Ellie can’t know.”

Sarah nodded. “I think the CIA would have noticed if he were a vampire,” she said.

“Unless he did everything online and never met them. Wouldn’t they know his sex at least, if he had met an agent?” Chuck retorted.

“Ah, he did meet a few members of the Intersect team,” Sarah said as she slipped into their bed. “But all of them were dead by the time he disappeared.”

“What?” Chuck sat up next to her. “Do you mean… he killed them?”

“If he did, then he managed to make it look like an accident,” Sarah replied. “They died during an unauthorised test.”

“How do you die during a computer test? Did they overclock the CPU until it blew up?” Chuck shook his head.

She didn’t quite frown at him. “They died testing the neural-optical interface. Fatal cerebral haemorrhaging.”

He blinked. “Uh… you mean the thing that put the thing in my head? And they bled to death?”

“If you want to use the technical terms, yes,” she said.

“You mean… I could have died when Bryce sent me the Intersect?” Chuck gasped.

“That’s a good question,” she replied.

“I think it’s more than a question - it’s my life on the line!”

“Orion vetoed the test and said further adjustments were needed for compatibility. Apparently, his co-workers disagreed,” Sarah told him.

“That sounds… sloppy of them,” Chuck commented. “Or it was a trap - by Orion.”

“It’s possible, though as far as the agency knows, Orion isn’t a killer.” If he were, he could have killed a number of people just by leaking classified information, after all.

“Where did you get the file, anyway? I mean, I assume you’ve got a file, since the data we had wasn’t covering that, or I’d know, you know.”

“It was sent to the base by courier and arrived today. Hardcopy.”

“Oh. So, back to my brain almost turning into Swiss cheese.”

She took a deep breath.

“Uh-oh. I know that breath. There’s another piece of bad news coming, right?” he blurted out before she could speak.

“Possibly,” she replied. “According to the files, the Intersect isn’t compatible with everyone, but only select people who have the correct neural setup.” Which she suspected included Chuck for a reason.

“‘Neural setup’? Is that a medical term? Because it doesn’t sound medical,” Chuck said. “It sounds more like a computer term.”

“It was coined by programmers,” Sarah replied. “Orion, I believe.” Not that she’d know since all data had been erased.

“Figures. But at least Orion would have had to be a doctor as well, wouldn’t he? Or he couldn’t have built that neural-optical interface.”

She knew what he was trying to say: His father hadn’t been a doctor. “One of the team members was a neurologist,” she told him. “He died in the accident.”

“Oh. So… does that mean that it’s more or less likely that the accident was a trap?”

More, in her opinion. But that didn’t fit the profile the agency had. “That’s hard to tell,” she replied.

He nodded. After a moment, he went on: “Speaking of telling… do we tell the other spies?”

“We probably need to tell Casey, but not Bane.”

“Ah.”

“Otherwise, Casey might shoot Orion at the first opportunity,” she explained.

“And we kind of trust him, don’t we?”

“Within reason.” They were the man’s best option in their situation. Of course, bringing in Orion might change that - the Agency would forgive a lot if they got their hands on the man.

“Ah. And Bane?”

“Absolutely not. She’s a mole for Beckman. She’d sell us out at the first opportunity. If they have Orion, they don’t need you any more.”

“Oh.” Chuck looked shocked. “I hadn’t thought about that.” He blinked. “So… we can’t let them get Orion.”

“No.” Which was one of the reasons Sarah hoped Orion was Chuck’s father. It would make things simpler.

Provided Orion’s motives were as noble as she had told Chuck. If not… Well, there was one way to ensure the CIA would never get their hands on Orion and to keep Chuck safe - from both Orion and the CIA.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 24th, 2007**

“Christmas Eve, and we’re working,” Chuck commented as he leaned against the wall next to where Casey was tagging new games.

“Like everyone who actually works for a living,” the agent replied with a sneer.

“That’s the spirit of the season!” Chuck said before he could stop himself. “Cheerful and joyful!”

Casey narrowed his eyes at him, and Chuck took a step to the side. Pure reflex. “Did you just come to make useless pansy comments? Life isn’t a holiday commercial.”

“Hey! Some of those commercials are vicious!” Chuck retorted. Overdone and not serious, and in that ‘trying too hard’ way, but vicious.

Casey scoffed in reply. “You don’t know vicious.”

Uh. “I grew up in a town with worse murder rates than an active war zone,” Chuck replied. It wasn’t entirely correct, depending on your definition of an active war zone, but Sunnydale hadn’t been a picnic!

“And yet you turned into a typical Californian milquetoast. Guess it’s genetic.”

Chuck looked around. “Speaking of genetic… did you check for bugs? The spying kind, I mean.”

“Always.”

Chuck took that to mean that Casey hadn’t found any. Asking would make him sound stupid, anyway. “So…” he lowered his voice. “Sarah had that theory. About Orion.”

“That he’s related to you. Probably your father.”

Chuck blinked. “How did you…?”

“I saw the file. You survived the integration of the Intersect. Several others - people who had worked on it - died trying that. And someone with the skills of Orion is sending your sister money for the wedding. Add the timeline, and odds are your father didn’t die.”

“Oh.” So much for the big spy-like reveal. “Uh, well… we’re planning to discuss it this evening, in private.” Meaning, not at the base. “So, you’re cordially invited to the annual Bartowski Christmas Eve Party.”

He could see the other man open his mouth to turn him down before Casey reconsidered. After a moment, the agent nodded with a glare.

“Perfect!” Chuck beamed at him. Casey would probably rather spend the evening with a bottle than with Chuck’s family - especially since Caridad would be attending as well - but that would make Casey look both afraid and less than perfectly dedicated to duty. “You’ll love the dinner.”

“I’m certain that it’ll be awesome.”

Chuck ignored the subtle dig - Casey was a spy, not a thug, he reminded himself; the man could do subtle - and nodded. “It’ll be! Until later, then!” 

He didn’t sigh with relief until he was out of sight. Mission accomplished. So to speak. Now he could focus on… Morgan talking to Bane? He blinked. No, not talking. Flirting. Well, in a Morgan way.

“Yes, I’m Chuck’s best friend - we grew up together. Practically brothers,” Chuck heard Morgan as he approached, hidden from sight by an aisle full of toasters on sale - which, apparently, hadn’t sold as well as Big Mike had thought they would. Chuck made a note to reduce their price further after Christmas.

“Oh. In Sunnydale?”

“Yes. Rough town, but we survived,” Morgan said, in a rather transparent imitation of a particular NPC in the latest expansion for his favourite CRPG. Well, transparent for anyone who had played the game. Like Chuck.

“Rough town?” Bane sounded like a naive girl.

“The worst,” Morgan replied. “Very violent. It made L.A. look peaceful.”

“Ah. I wouldn’t know that - it’s my first time in the city.” A little sigh emphasised Bane’s statement. “Which is why I’m so grateful for your invitation. Otherwise, I’d probably spend Christmas Eve at the base.” What?

“No problem,” Morgan said. “It’s the least I could do.”

What did he do?

“Well, I have to return; break’s over. See you later, Morgan.”

“Laters, Kirsten!”

Chuck rounded the corner as soon as the sounds of Bane’s heels on the floor faded. “Morgan!”

“Oh!” His friend looked startled, then straightened. “Chuck! Is there another attack?”

“What? No.”

“Ah, good.” Morgan smiled. “Oh, I wanted to tell you: I’ve got a plus one for the party tonight. Kirsten.”

‘Kirsten’. “I’ve heard,” Chuck said. “What were you thinking?”

“Hey! She’s new in the city, lonely, and it’s Christmas Eve!”

“She’s a spy, Morgan - sent here to ferret out our secrets,” Chuck told him through clenched teeth. And to seduce me, he added to himself.

“Well…” Morgan set his jaw. “That’s more of a reason to keep her close, then, so you can keep an eye on her, right? Besides, it’s a party, not a secret meeting.”

They had been planning to use the party to discuss Orion. Ellie and Devon as well as their friends could be handled. But Bane? But if Chuck told her not to come, she’d grow even more suspicious. What could he do? What could they do?

“Chuck?”

“What?” Chuck blinked as his thoughts were interrupted.

“I’ve got to finish taking stock of the home appliances! See you later, OK?”

“Uh…” Apparently, Chuck’s lack of response had been taken as agreement.

And now Chuck had to explain this to Sarah.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 24th, 2007**

So far, the Bartowski Christmas Eve party was a success. Sure, Casey was staying as far from Caridad as he managed, basically standing in a corner and glaring at anyone from the half a dozen friends and colleagues of Elie and Devon at the party whenever they came too close. He was probably waiting for a home invasion. Or a demon invasion. 

And Caridad was reenacting the biblical plague of locusts at the buffet in the other corner. Comfort food worked on Slayers, or so it seemed. It wasn’t any comfort to the household’s budget, though. But Ellie and Devon looked happy - well, whenever they didn’t look at Caridad. And no one had been assaulted or killed yet - with half a dozen clueless colleagues and friends of Ellie and Devon present, that was a serious consideration. At least the lie that Caridad was bulimic and very sensitive about it kept them from commenting about the Slayer’s appetite.

“My standards for a successful party have gone down,” he muttered.

“Hm?” Sarah asked.

“I was just thinking that the party was a success since no one has been killed yet. And we’ve been at it for over half an hour,” Chuck told her.

“‘Yet’,” she replied. “Miss Honey-Trap hasn’t arrived yet.”

So she was still angry at Bane’s invitation. “Morgan invited her,” he whispered.

“You didn’t have to accept that.”

Morgan was his best friend and had been trying to help - well, partially, at least. That Bane was hot had certainly played a part. A big part. “That would have needlessly antagonised her,” he said.

“She’s already an enemy.” 

It was surprising how Sarah could keep smiling happily while they were having an argument. And a little disturbing. “So why hasn’t Casey killed her already?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“That would force Beckman’s hand.”

“Ah.” He grimaced. Why would he have expected another answer? Sarah was a spy, after all. “But isn’t it a good thing that she’s after Morgan?” And not after Chuck.

“He’s just a stepping stone to get to you. It’s an old trick - go for the unattractive friend, then let the real target get jealous,” Sarah replied. She knew a lot about honey-traps, Chuck noticed not for the first time. “And Morgan is a source of information.”

“He won’t betray us,” Chuck defended his best friend. At her glance, he added: “He knows she’s a spy. And he’s gotten better at information security.” ‘Information security’ - he was talking like a real spy.

“She’s probably already seducing him.”

Morgan was actually late to the party - he usually was one of the first, and they had officially started half an hour ago. “She wouldn’t hurt him, would she? She knows that we know that she’s his date, after all.”

“I don’t think so,” Sarah said.

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Ellie made a beeline for the door. Chuck saw her smile falter a little, then noticed her surprise. “Speak of the devil,” he whispered.

He was right - Morgan and Bane entered, coming towards Chuck and Sarah, with Ellie in tow.

“Yes, I’m a co-worker of Sarah, of course I know her,” Chuck heard the spy say.

“Employee,” Sarah quickly corrected her. “I wanted a little more free time and flexibility, and business is good.”

“That’s how I met Morgan,” Bane added, hooking her arm through his. “And he invited me to this party. Isn’t he sweet?”

Everyone agreed, though with varying levels of sincerity, and Ellie left to restock the buffet.

“Nice party,” Bane commented, looking around.

“They’re Ellie and Devon’s friends,” Chuck said. Civilians who didn’t deserve CIA attention. “I barely know them.”

“Ah.” Bane nodded.

“Mostly doctors they know from university or work,” Morgan added.

“Right. Your family isn’t aware of your position, is it?”

“No,” Chuck confirmed.

“You must be very good at maintaining your cover,” the spy went on. “But isn’t this a little dangerous? For them and for you - anyone could use them to get close to you.”

Like Bane was trying to use Morgan?” Chuck shrugged. “If anyone suspects me, there are more ways to get to me.” Like faking a house call for Nerd Herd.

Bane nodded. “Do you suspect Orion will try more direct methods?”

“That doesn’t seem to be his modus operandi,” Sarah cut in. “But it is too soon to tell.” Her smile wouldn’t have looked out of place on Caridad’s face when trying to get the last tuna sandwich at the buffet, in Chuck’s opinion.

Bane wasn’t flinching, though, and returned a similar smile.

“Well, let’s get something to eat,” Morgan said, ”before all the good stuff’s gone.”

Bane agreed, and the two left for the buffet. Chuck sighed with relief.

Sarah’s glance at him had ‘I told you so’ written all over it.

*****

Half an hour later, Chuck was about to head over to Casey for another attempt at having a private talk without interference - why did every slightly inebriated medical professional present try to talk to an obvious anti-social grump? At least none of the women tried to flirt with Casey, so Caridad wasn’t making a scene - or a mess - when he saw Ellie coming towards them.

“Chuck! We need more toast!” she blurted out. “Caridad is eating more sandwiches than usual.”

“Uh… I think we have some at home,” he managed to say. She stared at him, and he caved “I’ll get it at once?”

“Yes.” She nodded sharply, as if it was his fault that Caridad was using food therapy to

“I’ll come with you,” Sarah said. “A little bit of fresh air will be nice.” ‘Fresh’ meaning ‘not shared with Bane’ for her, Chuck knew.

But she was correct - it felt nice to take a deep breath outside, despite the air pollution. “So…” he began when Sarah suddenly tensed. A moment later, she had drawn her gun. 

“Something’s in the air!” she hissed. “Above us!”

Chuck froze. Was that noise…? “That’s an RC helicopter,” he said. It sounded like the one Morgan had wrecked in that stupid stunt in the Buy More’s magazine when he had been trying to ‘revolutionise logistics’. 

Something hit the ground near them. A moment later, Chuck hit the ground courtesy of Sarah tackling him.

*****


	14. The Kite Affair

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 24th, 2007**

Chuck, although a little belatedly, opened his mouth, pressed his hands on his hears and waited for the explosion. Which didn’t happen.

After a few seconds, he felt Sarah roll off him and quickly crawled into the closest bush behind the low wall in the yard. A few more seconds later, he crouched and peeked over the wall.

Sarah was staring at the thing that had dropped down next to them. It was a padded case - he recognised the model - for shipping small, fragile items with postal services that handled them with their usual care. Meaning, the drop wouldn’t have damaged whatever was in the container.

“I don’t think it’s a bomb,” Chuck told her. “It would have exploded on impact, otherwise, wouldn’t it?”

She glanced at him with an annoyed expression, and he hunkered down a little more behind the wall. It hadn’t been him who had overreacted, had it?

She looked at the sky - Chuck couldn’t hear the RC helicopter any more - then turned back to the container. After a moment’s hesitation, she knelt down and opened it, revealing a mobile phone. As soon as she picked it up, she dropped it again.

“Sarah?”

“It vibrated.” She cocked her head. “A message arrived.”

He stood and walked around the wall towards her. It wasn’t a bomb. If whoever had sent the phone had wanted to kill him, they could have replaced the container with C-4. Enough, as Chuck knew, to completely destroy the yard and kill anyone inside it. So, it was safe to pick up the phone.

He still felt more than a little nervous when he reached Sarah. At least she didn’t send him back, so she must have agreed that it was safe. Relatively.

Crouching down, he picked up the phone. “Locked,” he told Sarah.

“There’s no note with the code in the container.”

Chuck didn’t need a note. Not with that model. He pulled a screwdriver from his back pocket and turned the phone around. A minute later, he had disabled the lock and could read the message.

_Kite Affair._

He closed his eyes and swore under his breath.

*****

“‘Kite Affair’?” Sarah looked at Chuck. He was muttering curses and had his eyes squeezed shut. He obviously knew what that meant, but didn’t react.

“Chuck?” she tried again. No reaction. “Ellie will be wondering what we’re doing.” It was a low blow, but they were exposed here. And she wanted answers.

He blinked, looking lost for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s go inside.”

They entered his flat, and he went straight to the kitchen, grabbing all their bread. “That should be enough, right?”

She looked at him and, after a moment, he sighed. “Kite Affair.” He sighed again. “When I was eight, I got one of those complicated kites for Christmas. You know, the Chinese-style. I don’t know any more why I wanted one, but I was over the moon. I spent all of Christmas Day putting the thing together. And on the day after Christmas, we went up Kingman’s Bluff - that’s a cliff overseeing the sea and Sunnydale. Well, only the sea, now. There was almost always a breeze there. I let the kite fly, saw it rise - and then it broke apart and fell into the sea, leaving me holding the string. I was devastated for the rest of the holidays. Ever since then, my family has called it the ‘Kite Affair’.”

Which meant that whoever sent him that message was probably his father. Orion. Sarah didn’t say that, of course. She didn’t have to, either - Chuck knew that already. “So,” she said instead, “we need to go to Kingman’s Bluff?”

“The day after tomorrow,” Chuck confirmed. “It’s the only thing that makes sense, I mean. Same day, same time.”

She nodded in agreement. “Back to Sunnydale?”

Chuck’s face showed a mixture of emotions for a moment. Apprehension, loathing, longing. Then he shrugged. “Back to the bay, actually - Sunnydale doesn’t exist anymore, after all.”

It still haunted him, though, Sarah knew. Him and probably every other survivor. At least those among them who knew the truth. She hugged him.

*****

Sarah was so… Chuck sighed as he held her. How did he deserve her? She had realised that Orion was his father while he had denied it. And she wasn’t rubbing it in. He didn’t deserve her. But he’d do everything to be with her.

He took another deep breath. He wouldn’t cry. Couldn’t cry. Ellie would notice and wonder what was wrong. And she couldn’t know about Dad and the CIA. “So… let’s go back before Ellie sends Devon after us.”

She released him and nodded. “Let’s go. We can make plans tomorrow.”

“We need to tell Casey, though.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And we need a story to tell Bane.”

“Yes.” He opened the door and found himself face to face with Caridad.

“Road trip?” the Slayer asked with a grin. “You can tell Bane that it’s another classified mission!”

Slayer hearing. Chuck should have expected this. Although that was a good idea. He blinked. “You want to come with us?”

“I have to, to maintain the cover, haven’t I?” Her grin grew. “And I might even catch a few demon cultists!”

“Demon cultists?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, yes. Some demons make pilgrimages to the ‘Lost Hellmouth’, as they call it.”

“They worship the site?”

“Yes. Sometimes - well, often - with sacrifices and the whole stuff.” She nodded. “You’ll need me.”

Chuck hadn’t known that. And he wished he had never heard of it.

*****

**California, near Sunnydale Bay, December 26th, 2007**

“Most demons do their thing at night so we should be pretty safe during the day,” Chuck said as he checked the map. He had grown up in the area, and he had taken a trip to Los Angeles often enough as a kid, but he hadn’t been back to Sunnydale in years. At least Ellie had accepted his explanation that he wanted to show Sarah where he had grown up - she had done something similar with Devon. Once.

“You’d be safe in the middle of the night under a full moon - you’re with me!” Caridad announced from the backseat.

“How often do you patrol here, anyway?” Sarah asked.

“Oh… once or twice a month, usually. On the days suitable for rituals, according to Phil,” the Slayer replied.

Which meant that any demon cultists had free reign of the area most of the time. Well, the Hellmouth was closed, and the town had been buried in a sinkhole before the ocean had filled the new bay - there was a limit to what even determined demons could do. At least Chuck hoped that this was the case.

“We might not have trouble with demons,” Sarah said, “but that doesn’t mean we’ll be safe.”

Caridad’s snort left no doubt about how little she thought of the threat by spies.

Chuck clenched his teeth. She should know better than that. Matter of fact, she had been quite appreciative of… of course. He almost groaned. This was aimed at Casey - who wasn’t with them in the first place.

“Can you detect a sniper half a mile away?” Sarah asked.

“Why would they want to meet Chuck in Sunnydale if they want to kill him? They could do this at home,” Caridad retorted.

Chuck winced. It might be true, but no one liked to hear how others could kill them.

“They might think that it’s easier to take us out and kidnap him there instead of in Los Angeles,” Sarah told her.

“Ah…” Caridad obviously hadn’t thought of that. “Why are we going there, then?”

“Because it probably isn’t a trap,” Chuck told her. “And because the only one who’d know about the Kite Affair would be my dad.” Although this whole meeting looked like it was set up by a spy with all the secrecy. Of course, if Orion was behind this, he’d have to be an experienced spy, or he’d have been caught long ago. But was Orion Dad? Chuck probably would find out soon. Either he’d meet his dad, who’d be alive, but hiding from everyone, including his family. Or he’d meet someone who knew something no one but Chuck’s family was supposed to know.

He felt Sarah’s hand on his thigh, gently squeezing. He must have let his emotions show on his face, he realised as he smiled at her in return. Well, with her, he could face this.

“Do you have another sandwich? I’m running on empty here.”

Leave it to Caridad’s appetite to ruin the moment.

*****

**California, Sunnydale Bay, Kingman’s Bluff, December 26th, 2007**

The place hadn’t changed, Chuck noticed as Sarah stopped the car a little below the top of the cliff. Not that there was much to change, of course - there was just grass and a very deep drop. The view, though… Where once, you could have seen the entire town below, now you only saw the almost perfectly circular bay. Geologists were still arguing with conspiracy theorists about the whole incident.

He stepped to the brink - well, not too close; he wasn’t a fool. Dad had taught him better when they had come here.

“I’ll do a perimeter check!” Caridad announced. A moment later, she was running down the slope.

“Did she learn that term from Casey?” Sarah asked, looking around - once the Slayer was too far away to overhear them.

“No. Xander taught them,” Chuck told her. “Well, the Slayers who were activated here in Sunnydale.” The day the town had been destroyed.

“He sounded like a veteran soldier,” Sarah commented. And she’d know that he had been a classmate of Chuck - and hadn’t served by the time all this had happened.

“It’s complicated,” he said. It wasn’t his story to tell. “But he’s got the experience.” And, Chuck realised, Xander had been - probably still was - very popular among the new Slayers. Was that part of the reason Caridad was after Casey? It didn’t make sense, though. The two men were very different. Casey was a hardass, overly-serious soldier. Xander was cracking jokes all the time and incredibly laid back. When it wasn’t about killing demons, of course.

“I don’t see anything out of…” Sarah trailed off as Chuck once again heard the sound of an RC helicopter. No, something bigger. “A drone?”

“He would be checking for an ambush,” Sarah told him.

“Ah.” Or, Chuck knew, this could be the ambush. But no bombs were dropped on them, nor were more phones to redirect them to another spot. The drone disappeared after circling for a while. He was actually relieved - even though no one had mentioned it, the real reason Caridad was with them was because this could be a trap by a demon wearing Dad’s face or body. Not a vampire - it was closer to noon than to dawn.

Then they heard a car.

For a moment, he thought it would be their old car. Dad had always used the same car, as far as Chuck could remember - a worn Ford Escort. But they had sold the car, after his disappearance. And, of course, such a car would stick out these days.

It was a Ford, but a Pickup. F-series. Not the latest model, nor the most expensive. One of the most common, though. Easy to blend in, but not too generic, unlike the ubiquitous FBI cars in the movies.

He was thinking like a spy, Chuck realised. Then the pickup stopped, the door opened, and Chuck wasn’t thinking anymore.

“D-Dad?”

The man’s - Dad’s - face twisted into a sad and embarrassed smile. “Hi, son.”

Before Chuck could say anything, Caridad appeared right behind Dad, sniffing. “Clean,” she announced, and Dad jerked, startled, whirling around. “What the…?”

The Slayer grinned. “Just checking if you’re a threat.”

“How… You’re the Slayer!”

That surprised Caridad, and her grin slipped. Chuck was surprised as well. “You know about Caridad?” he asked.

Dad shook his head. “I didn’t know it was her.”

Chuck blinked. How could he not… ‘it’? “The Initiative. You’ve read their files.”

Dad smiled in a very familiar way. As if Mom had just caught him sneaking a few cookies before they had properly cooled down. “Guilty as charged. Though they didn’t have the Slayer’s identity on record.”

They should’ve had it, as far as Chuck knew. Though perhaps they hadn’t passed on all information - or not everything had been entered into computer data banks.

“And you’ve hacked our files,” Sarah spoke up.

Dad inclined his head. “A necessity, given my circumstances. They’ve learned not to save or use anything electronically, but sometimes, they slip. Like when Beckman was talking to you about me in a video call.”

“That’s the reason you contacted us?” Chuck asked, feeling hurt. Would he have been left thinking his father was dead if they hadn’t started searching for Orion?

“I was going to anyway, but this accelerated the process.” Dad smiled. “I knew I couldn’t send the money to Ellie without starting… this.”

“You knew Chuck is the Intersect,” Sarah said.

“That secret isn’t as well-protected as it should be,” Dad replied. Chuck couldn’t tell if he was angry or merely annoyed. Or if all of it was an act.

“No. You knew because you arranged it.” 

“What?” Chuck looked at her. She was glaring at his father.

“Others who tried to integrate the Intersect died. Chuck didn’t,” she went on. Tense, he noticed. As if she was about to attack.

“He’s my son; we have very similar brain structures.”

“And out of all the possible people, Chuck is the one to whom Bryce mails it? In a form that would trigger the neuro-optical interface?” Sarah shook her head. “Too much of a coincidence.”

That was… it made sense. In a disturbing way. “You knew Bryce,” Chuck said.

Once more, his father nodded. “I contacted him once I realised both of you were targetted for recruitment by the CIA.”

“You told him to keep me out of the CIA?” Chuck asked.

“To keep you safe.”

“And in exchange, you helped him,” Sarah said. “He was promoted very quickly thanks to his many successful missions - missions he accomplished with your help as a hacker. And while he was promoted, you had a mole inside the CIA who would gain more and more power. Someone who was able to sabotage the Intersect.”

“And infiltrate Fulcrum,” Dad confirmed her accusation. With a lopsided smile, he added: “You’re like me, Chuck - you love smart women. Of course, I already knew that after fourth grade.”

“Fifth grade?” Caridad asked.

“A crush,” Chuck shut down the tangent. No one needed to know about his brief, immature pre-teen crushes on teachers. “So, you wanted me to have the Intersect?”

“Not exactly,” Dad replied. “I wanted it destroyed, but I told Larkin a little too much - mainly to stop him from trying to assimilate the Intersect himself. He was willing to do almost anything to root out Fulcrum. He must have figured out that you’d be able to do it.”

So, it was, once again and still, Bryce’s fault.

Chuck’s father sighed and leaned against the car. “I didn’t know what Larkin was planning, or I would have tried to stop him. Or, at least, erased all traces of his mail to you so that the CIA wouldn’t have been able to find you.” He shook his head. “I should never have accepted to work for them. If I had known what it would cost me, us… I wouldn’t have done it, but when I realised what they wanted me to do, what I had to do to avoid that, it was too late.”

Chuck felt the urge to walk over and hug him but suppressed it. “And you thought leaving us in Sunnydale would be a good idea?”

Caridad snorted at that, but didn’t comment on it further.

“I didn’t know the truth about the town, Chuck. By the time I found out, you and Ellie had already left for Los Angeles.” Dad shook his head again. “If I had known about vampires, I’d have taken you out of there, even if we would have had to hide afterwards.”

For a moment, Chuck wished his father had done that. Had taken them away from Sunnydale. Stayed with them. But only for a moment. Their lives wouldn’t have gone well, he knew. 

And he wouldn’t have met Sarah. Or, worse, he would have met her as an enemy.

“How convenient that Bryce is dead and so he can’t contradict your claim,” Sarah said with a flat stare.

And, Chuck reminded himself, having Sarah as an enemy would be terrifying.

“Do you honestly think that you would have found Chuck if I had arranged for him to become the Intersect?” 

Though, apparently, not terrifying enough to unsettle Dad. He met her eyes calmly, Chuck saw. 

Sarah pressed her lips together but didn’t retort.

“So…” Chuck said after a moment, “what happens now? Will you, uh, stay around?” He licked his lips, unsure what he wanted to hear.

Dad sighed. “I wish. But my presence would endanger you. You and Ellie.”

Ellie. Chuck could handle Dad being Orion. He wasn’t a spy, but he had some experience by now. And friends who could handle it. Ellie was a civilian. And Devon was awesome - but not a spy.

“Your identity might be compromised anyway,” Sarah pointed out. “If we can deduce it, so can others. And headquarters is aware of our speculation.”

Dad nodded. “I’m aware of that. That’s another reason I wanted to meet you, Chuck.”

“Another reason?”

His father chuckled, but it sounded sad rather than amused. “I wanted to see you and talk to you, after all these years. And there are a few things you need to know about the Intersect. But, a little more urgent, I want to arrange a decoy.”

A decoy? Chuck frowned. What did he mean?

As usual, Sarah was quicker on the uptake. “You want to frame someone as Orion. Probably to fake your death.”

Whoa! Dad wanted to kill someone to save his cover? That was… Chuck blinked. Sarah didn’t seem to be appalled.

“There are a few thoroughly disgusting people among Grover’s clients,” Dad replied. “It wouldn’t be too hard to make one of them appear to have been behind an attempt to replace his computer specialist with you.”

“What?” Chuck shook his head. “Why would a criminal want to recruit me? And why would they go through Ellie?” Wouldn’t they contact him? Probably with a sexy woman tempting him into a life of crime?

“Leverage. If Ellie’s using dirty money for her wedding, she can be framed for laundering money. What would you do to save her from that?” Dad asked.

“Oh.” That made somewhat sense. “But why would they pick me? I’m not exactly what people would consider top recruiting material.”

“Talented computer specialist, expelled from Stanford for cheating? Working a dead-end job in a mall?” Dad shook his head. “That’s a good fit for many organisations.”

“I graduated from Stanford,” Chuck retorted. Late, and only thanks to the CIA, but he had graduated.

“You hadn’t when you first caught their attention.”

What?

“You already arranged a cover story,” Sarah said.

Dad inclined his head. “Nerf Herd has a number of people with ties to organised crime among their clients.”

“And you had Chuck take those jobs,” Sarah accused him. “Probably by manipulating the call for tech support. Or arranging the exact problem so he would be the only one able to handle it.”

Holy shit! He had arranged all of this already? Dad _was_ a spy. 

*****

Orion had manipulated Chuck’s life for years, starting at Stanford with Bryce. And now he was using his own son to save himself. Sarah knew the type - Orion was a spymaster. She narrowed her eyes at the man but refrained from showing her feelings more clearly.

“Contingency plans,” he admitted. “You don’t evade the CIA for years without planning ahead.”

“And what would you have done if the criminals you set up had decided to recruit Chuck for real?” she asked.

“I’d have put a stop to it, of course,” the old man replied.

“Plans don’t always go according to plan,” Caridad pointed out. The Slayer had been remarkably quiet so far, in Sarah’s opinion.

“I’ve got some experience with such setups,” Orion retorted.

Sarah believed him. This wasn’t the first time he’d have done that.

“You’ve done this before?” Chuck had come to the same conclusion. And, apparently, didn’t like it.

“Yes, Chuck.” Orion sighed, looking weary. Or acting like he was. “Only people who deserved it, though. Mob members. Drug lords. Murderers.”

“Oh.”

Sarah hoped Chuck didn’t think that his father was some sort of vigilante.

“Arranging this deception won’t take much,” the man went on, “and it’ll put a dent in the local drug trade - for a while, at least.”

“Good,” Caridad chimed in. “Drug dealers gave us some trouble before I killed Melvin.”

“A vampire who ran a drug dealing organisation,” Chuck explained.

“Oh. I wasn’t aware that demons were involved with that,” Orion said.

“You don’t know much about the supernatural, do you?” Sarah asked.

“More than most, I would wager,” he retorted. Was that some annoyance she could hear?

“But not enough!” Caridad said. “If you want to hang out near Chuck, you’ll need to know more.”

Sarah pressed her lips together. She didn’t like the thought of Orion learning more about demons nor his presence near Chuck. But, she realised with a glance at him, she wouldn’t be able to keep the man away. Chuck wanted his father.

And to think she had wished for this reunion to happen.

“Well, there are things you need to know as well,” Orion replied. “About the Intersect.”

“Oh?” Chuck blinked. “Right. As we found out, no one really knows much about the Intersect. At the CIA, I mean.”

Sarah suppressed the urge to point out that the NSA didn’t know anything, either.

“I was quite thorough when I erased the information before I quit,” Orion said. “Helped along by the secrecy on which the CIA insisted, of course.”

“And by the coincidental deaths of most of the core team,” Sarah said.

Orion winced. “I told them not to attempt any upload without me, but they didn’t want to listen to an outsider.”

He sounded sincere - but anyone who had survived ten years on the run from the CIA would be able to lie convincingly.

“What happened?” Chuck asked.

“The Intersect is patterned after my own neural structure - I used myself as a model,” the older man explained. “That means the optical interface will overload most people’s brains.”

“Ew.” Apparently, Chuck’s imagination was a little more fertile - and more gruesome - than Sarah’s.

“Yes. It wasn’t pretty, or so I found out.” Orion shook his head. “It can be adjusted, but that requires special knowledge - I never wrote those steps down.”

“Insurance,” Sarah commented. And leverage.

“Exactly.” He nodded at her. “And as it turned out, I was wise to prepare such insurance. Otherwise, the CIA would have uploaded the Intersect to many agents - including members of Fulcrum and other moles.”

“That… would have been bad,” Chuck said.

An understatement, if Sarah had ever heard any.

“Worse,” Orion said. “The Intersect isn’t just a database with an advanced algorithm to filter and connect information.”

“What?” Chuck and Sarah said in unison.

“It ties much deeper into your central nervous system,” Orion said. A moment later, he was holding a gun.

And before Sarah could blink, Orion was on the ground, with Caridad on top of him, holding the gun. “Hah!”

“Wait!” The older man groaned - she had him in an arm lock. “I was merely going to demonstrate the advanced capabilities of the Intersect.”

Sarah blinked. That meant… “You have the Intersect in your head as well!”

“What?” Chuck said.

The man laughed, if a little forced. “Of course. I wouldn’t let anyone risk their mind without testing it myself.”

And, Sarah thought, he wouldn’t let himself miss out on all the advantages it offered.

*****

Dad had the Intersect in his head. Chuck couldn’t believe it. Wait - of course he could. Why wouldn’t Dad do this, if he had built it? That would have been worse than building a high-end custom computer for a customer without trying it out in the Home Entertainment Display Room after work! But… “Advanced capabilities?”

“Can I get up?”

Caridad growled.

“Please, let him up,” Chuck told her.

The Slayer did so - but with obvious reluctance. “He better not try anything like that again.”

“Of course not. Apparently, Slayers are even more formidable than I thought.”

That made Caridad grin, as expected. It didn’t make her look much more friendly, though.

“Anyway, I’ve got an early version of the Intersect in my head. Most of the information isn’t up to date any more,” Dad told them, rubbing his shoulder after he got up. “But the skills work.”

“Skills?” Chuck repeated. Did he mean…

“Shooting. Fighting. Athletics. The ‘spy package’, as I like to call it.” Dad grinned. “The CIA wanted a way to turn the most reliable agents they had into the perfect spies without having to train them for years.”

“A spy is more than just a collection of weapon and fighting skills,” Sarah said. She was looking decidedly unamused, Chuck noticed.

“Oh, yes. I never said the CIA’s order was very smart. But those skills certainly help any agent - or anyone trying not to get disappeared by them.”

Oh. Chuck blinked - he had almost forgotten about that.

“May I demonstrate the Intersect’s secondary function?”

Caridad growled, then slowly nodded. “Fight me.”

“Err…”

“She won’t hurt you,” Chuck was quick to say.

“Alright…” Dad rubbed his shoulder again, then suddenly lunged at the Slayer.

Who easily evaded the strike, as well as the follow-up swing. And the next combo.

But even as the Slayer demonstrated why every demon with half a brain feared her, Chuck realised that his father knew Kung Fu.

After a few minutes, Dad stopped, panting. “Did that suffice?”

“Yes,” Chuck said, nodding.

“You’ve got the skills, but not the endurance. And probably not the muscle tone, either,” Sarah remarked.

“Yes,” Caridad agreed. “You fought like someone possessed by a warrior spirit - all the knowledge, but your body isn’t used to it, so you don’t reach your potential.”

“It’s a little hard to go to a gym when you’re on the run,” Dad said. He sounded a little defensively, in Chuck’s opinion. “But it certainly is an advantage against any normal enemy, isn’t it?”

Definitely, Chuck agreed. “There’s just one question,” he said. “Why can’t I do that?”

“I don’t know the exact reason, Chuck,” Dad told him. “It could be that the skills package was cut out - though I don’t think anyone would have known enough about the Intersect to be able to do that. Anyone except me, obviously. I don’t think Larkin would have been able to do that. But I would need to examine you to find out for certain - and with rather expensive and bulky medical devices.”

“Like, scanning my head?” Chuck felt a little queasy. What if something was wrong with his brain? He hadn’t been examined, not medically. There had been that examination in the Buy More, but that had been more like a test, with questions and pictures, without the doctor actually seeing him. This would be an actual examination. And what if something went wrong? What if he had some metal in his head and the scan would send it whirling around inside his head? He hadn’t, to his knowledge. But what if they found out that he had cancer?

“Well, sort of.” Dad smiled reassuringly. Just not reassuringly enough.

“Is it dangerous?” Caridad asked.

“It shouldn’t be, though you can never be a hundred per cent certain.”

So Dad hadn’t lost the habit to be a little too precise and honest for his own good - and for Chuck’s peace of mind. This was almost as bad as the time they had been to Disney World, and Chuck had asked if the roller coaster was safe. He hadn’t gone on any roller coaster for years after hearing about everything that, theoretically, could go wrong.

But Chuck had to know if there was something wrong with his Intersect. Or with his head. He nodded. “Alright.”

“Do you have a way to get access to such devices without risking Chuck’s cover?” Sarak asked.

“I usually wait for an opportunity at various clinics,” Dad replied. “When they receive new scanners who need to be tested, for example, so I can replace the technician doing that. But that isn’t the case currently. Not over the holidays.”

“We should be able to arrange that,” Sarah said.

Chuck almost asked: ‘We are?’ Of course the CIA would be able to arrange such things. But… “Can we do that without Bane knowing about it?”

“Yes.” Sarah sounded confident. “It’ll take a little while, though.”

“Oh.” Chuck felt both relieved and disappointed. “So… what now? I mean… what do we do now? What do you want to do now? And what do we tell Bane and Beckman? And what about Casey?”

Dad chuckled. “Good questions.”

Chuck narrowed his eyes at him with a frown. “That means you don’t know.” It had meant that, at least, when Chuck had been a kid.

“Guilty as charged,” Dad replied with a wry smile.

Once more, Sarah stepped up. “Bane and Beckman can’t know about this. Casey… in the short run, it’d be safer not to tell him, but that will cause problems in the long run. And we already told him about our suspicion of Orion’s identity.”

“Wouldn’t he understand about need to know?” Chuck asked.

“It’s about trust,” she told him. “And no matter how professional an agent is or claims to be, there’s always something personal when it comes to such things.” She looked at the Slayer as if Chuck didn’t know what she meant.

Caridad scoffed. “You should tell him. If he causes problems, we deal with him.”

“He’s a very good agent,” Sarah retorted. “We might not realise what he has done until it’s too late.”

“Such as informing Beckman about my identity?” Dad asked.

Sarah looked grim. “It would allow him to save his career. Or attempt to do so.”

“But would he attempt that? Knowing what he does now?” Caridad asked. A little pleadingly, in Chuck’s opinion Not that he’d tell her that - he wasn’t suicidal.

“We don’t know. Orion having invented the Intersect is one thing. Orion being able to use it to turn people into highly-trained soldiers? That’s a game changer, and Casey will realise it. Any country with that capability would have a huge advantage over everyone else. Casey might very well think this is worth betraying us. And I won’t risk Chuck and his family to find out,” Sarah declared. Dad nodded approvingly at her, Chuck noticed.

Caridad had a mulish expression but didn’t contradict Sarah. And yet...

“Uh...” Chuck trailed off. “Won’t he suspect anyway? Even with the drug dealer framing?” Which was kind of really ruthless. “Or especially with the framing? We did tell him that we thought Orion might be you, Dad.”

“He’s smart,” Caridad said, nodding. “And if he thinks we don’t trust him, he won’t trust us, either.”

Which meant they would push him into the very action they wanted to avoid, Chuck realised. He hated such problems in games, and there, one could usually save and redo the decision if one didn’t like the outcome. Or read a guide.

“Agent Casey’s file doesn’t portray a man willing to put teammates over what he would consider the country’s best interest,” Dad said.

“Well, he’s willing to join the Council,” Caridad pointed out.

“The Council?” Dad looked puzzled.

Oh. He didn’t know about the Watcher’s Council. Chuck looked at Caridad.

“Me?”

“You’re the Slayer. You know them best,” he told her.

“I’m usually not the one to do exposition,” she replied.

“Morgan’s not here.” Which, given that Dad probably still saw him as a bumbling little kid, was a good thing.

“Alright.” Caridad took a deep breath. “So, there’s the Slayer - one girl, now hundreds, to fight the demons and stuff. But there’s also the Watchers Council. Founded before writing was invented, they are the successors of the Shadow Men…”

*****

“...and that’s basically the new Council,” Caridad finished her colourful and slightly unstructured explanation.

“That…” Dad slowly started to smile. “That changes everything!” he said.

Chuck blinked. “What?”

“They can put pressure on the government to make them back off.” Dad shook his head as his smile grew. “I wouldn’t have to hide any more.”

“Yes, you would,” Sarah told him. “Chuck’s the Intersect, but the CIA can still rebuild and update the database. Sooner or later, Chuck’s version of the Intersect will become less crucial.”

Obsolete, Chuck reminded himself. As more and more data became outdated, he wouldn’t be able to trust the Intersect’s conclusions any more; even small errors would ruin the results. His days as a spy - or at least a spy-like asset - had an expiration date. Unless he got the Intersect’s skills as well.

“You, though, built the Intersect,” Sarah went on. “You can build another Intersect. For anyone. You can update the Intersect. And you can maximise its potential.”

Dad looked grim now. “They won’t let me be.”

“No.” Sarah looked at Caridad. “And even with the Council’s pressure, they’ll use black ops and proxies to go after him.”

“They would be stupid to do that - we’d find out!” the Slayer retorted.

“They can’t afford to let him go to someone else,” Sarah replied. “Especially with Chuck having the most recent version of the Intersect to build upon.

Chuck winced. If he were part of the reason his father wouldn’t be able to finally stop hiding and be with them again… “But they don’t know it’s you,” he said. “What if we, uh, do that drug dealer framing and make it appear as if they had kidnapped you long ago, or so?”

“They’re already looking for the creator of the Intersect,” Sarah shot his idea down. “They won’t be fooled by such a story.”

Meaning it was a stupid idea. Chuck pressed his lips together. But he didn’t want his dad to disappear again. There had to be a way to solve this.

“We can use a ‘kidnapped to a hell dimension’ cover story,” Caridad said suddenly.

“Hell dimension?” Chuck blinked. “Oh. But fifteen years?”

“Some dimensions have a different time. A day here could be a hundred years there,” Caridad replied. “Buffy had to clean up one such dimension, once - in L.A.” She grinned. “And it means we could say the details are classified!”

“‘Hell dimensions’?” Dad asked. “Are those what I think they are?”

“Well,” the Slayer replied, “if you’re thinking fire and brimstone, that exists. But mostly, they are dimensions ruled by demons.”

“Like the layers of the Abyss or the Nine Hells,” Chuck told his father. Dad had been playing D&D with him and Morgan, after all. Before he disappeared.

“Oh.”

Caridad rolled her eyes. “Something like that. Anyway, some demons like to keep humans as slaves. A number, actually. If anyone asks for more details, we can ask Fred to fill you in. She escaped such a dimension herself.”

“Fred?” Dad asked.

“She’s a genius scientist. Some demon lord tried to possess her, but Willow fixed that,” the Slayer explained. “Unfortunately, she’s still hanging with those losers.”

“Angel and his crew,” Chuck explained. “They moved.” He wasn’t going to talk in detail about that mess. “Anyway, is that possible?” he asked Sarah.

She frowned in response. “Only if it doesn’t happen too close on the heels of the current situation,” she said after a moment. “And if there’s a good explanation for the transactions.”

Which meant frame the drug dealer was still on.

“I can make it a double-bluff,” Dad said. “Make it look like Orion wanted to use the drug dealer to get closer to the new Intersect. That would also make it look like there was no prior connection between us, or I wouldn’t have needed that deception.”

“That might work,” Sarah said after a moment.

It certainly sounded paranoid enough for a spy plan, in Chuck’s opinion. “And we can explain Dad’s absence to Ellie without revealing the Intersect,” he added. “Willow could claim she wanted to reunite our family for the wedding.”

“Willow can’t lie worth a damn,” Caridad said - a slightly unfortunate choice of words given the topic of conversation. “Ellie would see through her.”

“I don’t think that that’ll be a serious problem,” Chuck retorted.

“Just saying:” Caridad shook her head. “And what about Casey?”

“Good question,” Chuck said, then pouted at Dad’s chuckle.

“Tell him and watch him. If he betrays us, we finish him,” Caridad said. 

Chuck couldn’t tell if she wanted Casey to betray them or not. “He’s ready to work for the Council with us,” he pointed out. “Even though that means Chuck will take the Intersect with him.”

“He doesn’t have much of a choice,” Sarah replied. “Catching Orion would offer him another chance with the NSA.” She’d said that before, of course.

“But that wouldn’t change, would it? And sooner or later, he’ll find out the truth,” Chuck said. The Scoobies weren’t exactly the best at keeping secrets. His whole class had known after a few months that Buffy wasn’t normal.

“You know Agent Casey best,” Dad added, looking at them.

Chuck looked at Sarah. She had worked with Casey before. This was her call.

*****


	15. The Truth

**California, Sunnydale Bay, Kingman’s Bluff, December 26th, 2007**

Chuck expected her to make the call? Sarah struggled not to wince. He was dumping this on her? No, he was trusting her with this? His father’s freedom and life, potentially?

Because she was the experienced spy. And knew Casey better than he did. Supposedly - Casey and Chuck had spent quite some time together in the Buy More. She sighed. 

Would it be bad if she told Orion that Casey couldn’t be trusted and would see through the deception? She didn’t really trust the man. The accident that had taken the lives of the rest of the Intersect team had been a little too convenient. And no one stayed ahead of the CIA for ten years without being a cunning and ruthless spy. Not to mention that Orion had faked his death to work for the CIA in the first place - his argument that he had done it to protect Chuck and Ellie wasn’t very compelling, in her opinion. Working for the CIA wasn’t that bad. Unless things had changed a lot since before she had joined up.

But if Orion left, Chuck and Ellie would still be in danger. Especially Ellie - she was leverage against both Chuck and Orion, who had proved that he cared for her. 

And, most importantly, Casey already knew about Orion. All but knew for certain. He would have suspicions - especially if they claimed the meeting had been a bust. And if he suspected that they didn’t trust him, he wouldn’t trust them. And he wouldn’t have any reason to protect them.

No, it would be best to tell Casey the truth.

“We’ll tell him the truth. And if he tries to betray us…”

“We’ll crush him,” Caridad said. The Slayer might mean it literally.

Sarah didn’t particularly care. If Casey betrayed them, Chuck and Ellie would have to go into hiding. The Council might be able to pull a few strings, but it wouldn’t be enough to prevent them from having to get a new identity. And be on their guard all the time.

If Casey caused this, he deserved whatever an angry Slayer would do to him.

*****

Chuck was relieved. Lying to Casey wouldn’t have been right - or so he thought. They were a team, after all. Sarah, Casey and Chuck. It was bad enough that they had to keep lying to Bane, but that wasn’t anyone’s fault but hers. And Beckman’s. 

“If you’re certain…”

Dad didn’t sound as if he was fully behind this, though.

Chuck nodded. “It’s for the best.”

“The alternative would be worse,” Sarah added. 

Although that wasn’t the enthusiastic support Chuck would have liked. And he still couldn’t tell if Caridad hoped Casey would prove their trust well-placed, or that she could crush him. “One less person we have to lie to,” he said.

After a moment, Dad replied: “You haven’t told Ellie the truth about yourself, have you?”

“Uh…” Chuck winced. “We’ve got to maintain my cover, or she’d be in danger.”

“You don’t trust her to keep a secret?” Dad looked disappointed.

“Wasn’t that why you faked your death?” Chuck shot back.

“You were kids at the time. You’re adults now.”

“She’s no spy,” Sarah said. “She’s a civilian.”

“She knows about demons and Slayers,” Caridad cut in.

“As a doctor, she has a lot of responsibility and is protecting her patients’ privacy,” Dad said.

“She already worries a lot about Chuck whenever he helps out with demon hunting,” Sarah pointed out. “If she knew about him being a spy, that would be worse.”

Chuck nodded in agreement. It was for Ellie’s own good.

“Were you happy about my decision for your own good?”

He clenched his teeth. That was unfair. He hadn’t faked his death, making Ellie think he was dead.

But he was faking his work, his life, and making her think he wasn’t risking his life as a spy. If something happened to him…

“I’d prefer not to lie to my children any more,” Dad said, sighing with that lopsided smile again.

“She’ll resent you for leaving her and faking your death,” Sarah pointed out. “If she thinks you were kidnapped by demons, that won’t happen.”

“Ellie’s smart. She’ll realise the truth sooner or later - Chuck isn’t that good at lying,” Dad replied. “And I really don’t want to lie to her any more. Trust me, lying to people you care about is the worst part of living in hiding.”

Or living as a spy, Chuck realised as he slowly nodded in agreement.

“And if you tell her the truth now, she might forgive you sooner - it’s Christmas, after all,” Caridad added.

Chuck winced. Ellie wasn’t the most forgiving type. And while she would be most angry at Dad for his deception and abandoning them, she would also be angry at Chuck for his lies.

He really wasn’t looking forward to revealing the truth to his sister. But he nodded anyway. “So… I guess it’s settled.” 

And then he hugged his father for the first time in fifteen years. And didn’t think about anything but the good times for a while.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 26th, 2007**

“How did it go?” Casey asked as soon as they entered his apartment. His usual grim expression faltered - was he wincing? - for just a moment when he spotted Caridad behind them. But the Slayer didn’t enter. Instead, she went to Chuck and Sarah’s apartment to ‘check for threats’. Like Casey betraying them.

“We found Orion. And he’s my Dad,” Chuck told him as soon as the door closed behind them.

Casey grunted but didn’t say anything.

Chuck cleared his throat. “So… he also told us about the Intersect. It has a greater potential than we thought. Though he doesn’t know why I can’t fully use it, yet.”

“You mean he doesn’t know why you can’t flash on command?” Casey narrowed his eyes.

“Uh… we didn’t actually talk about that.” They should have, Chuck realised. But there had been so much else to talk about. “Anyway, it should also grant me combat skills.”

“Combat skills?”

“Orion has an earlier version of the Intersect himself,” Sarah cut in. “It provided him - or so he claimed - with advanced combat skills. His demonstration with Caridad supported his claim.”

“Well, he could have trained in Kung Fu for fifteen years, of course,” Chuck pointed out. “While hiding from the CIA. And hacking all their computers. But I think it’s the Intersect in his head. Which, by the way, is patterned after our neural structure. Others tried to access it and died from the strain.”

“The Big Brains fried their brains?” Casey chuckled. Once.

“Anyway, apparently, he was press-ganged into working for the CIA,” Chuck went on, “and that’s why he faked his death. And why he later erased all his information and went into hiding.”

“After the rest of the Intersect team had an accident trying to download the database into their heads,” Sarah added.

“A convenient accident, huh?” Casey asked.

“Yes,” Sarah agreed. “I suspect sabotage - but we don’t know whether it was his work, or Fulcrum’s.”

Chuck blinked. He hadn’t thought about that. In hindsight, it was a little odd that everyone in the team would attempt such a lethal procedure. On the other hand… “Unless the first one to download the Intersect went berserk and killed the others before dying of cerebral haemorrhaging.” Both spies looked at him, and he raised his hands. “Hey! I’m just pointing out that if the Intersect can turn you into a kung fu master, that might be a bad thing if your brain’s also getting overloaded by all the images and pictures. You know.”

“Right.” Casey sounded doubtful. “You’re the one who had his brain fried by this.”

“I’m actually the one who _didn’t_ have his brain fried,” Chuck retorted. “Because the Intersect is patterned for my kind of brain.”

Casey glared at him. “And for your sister’s, too, then.”

“What?” Chuck blinked. “Oh my God - you’re not turning Ellie into an Intersect!”

“No, we’re not,” Sarah agreed. “But someone might think of it if this information gets out.”

“Uh.” He winced. “It won’t get out, right?”

Casey grunted again. “So, what deal did you make with Orion?”

Chuck couldn’t tell if his question being ignored was a bad thing or not. “Uh… we kind of agreed to help him frame a drug lord for the payment and make it appear as if Orion wanted to get close to me through my sister because he wants the new Intersect. And, obviously, has no other connection to me, like being my father. It’s really...”

“You want to help him hide from the CIA,” Casey cut him off.

“He is my dad,” Chuck told him. “And his leaving the CIA prevented Fulcrum from taking over the Intersect - we still haven’t found all the traitors, have we?”

Casey grunted again. “He’s a traitor.”

“Technically, he’s a deserter, not a traitor,” Chuck said. “He didn’t go to another country and told them all about the Intersect. He just didn’t want to work on it any more. And he didn’t want to endanger us. Me and Ellie, I mean.” Why wasn’t Sarah saying anything? She knew Casey best, didn’t she?

“And you’re planning to let him join the Council.”

“Well… it would mean he’d be safe from other intelligence agencies. Relatively safe. And if he manages to get the skill part of the Intersect working, that would help a lot of Watchers, I think,” Chuck said. “Like Morgan.” Casey growled at that. “Perhaps Morgan was a bad example,” Chuck backpedalled. “But it could be useful for saving the world.”

“And if the agency catches Orion, Chuck and Ellie will become hostages,” Sarah added. “They don’t need Chuck as the Intersect any more once they have Orion. And they don’t need us any more, either.”

Casey rubbed his chin, then went over to his desk, grabbing a bottle of whisky - expensive single malt, Chuck recognised the brand and managed to refrain from making a joke about unpatriotic beverages.

Casey didn’t say anything as he filled a glass with the liquor, then took a big swallow. “And you’re wondering about my loyalties,” he finally commented.

“Yes,” Sarah replied.

“Uh, what she said. Yes,” Chuck said. “I mean, it’s not as if we’d doubt you, but… there’s a little niggling worry…”

Casey scoffed. “We’ve been burned. Even if we handed Orion over, they wouldn’t trust us. And they wouldn’t like the information about the Intersect’s full potential to spread.” He downed the rest of the drink, then refilled his glass. “Not to mention that I like living in a world free of demons and doing my part to keep it demon-free.”

Chuck smiled - cautiously. So far, things were going well.

But he still had to break the news to Ellie.

*****

“Can you pass me the whipped cream? Thank you.” 

Chuck ignored Sarah’s glance as he covered his piece of cake with more cream. Ellie didn’t bake very often, but when she did, it was delicious. Ample reason not to ruin the mood - which might result in him and Sarah having to leave the apartment - before dessert was finished.

And yes, he was stalling. Besides, Ellie deserved a nice meal as well. She had cooked it, after all. Slaved in the kitchen for hours. Well, two hours, if you counted the baking. Pasta didn’t take that long to make. Still…

“Out with it, Chuck.”

“Huh?” He looked up.

“You’ve been away for most of the day on a trip and haven’t told us anything about it. Just vague descriptions of the road up north.” Ellie was narrowing her eyes at him. “Towards Sunnydale.”

Damn, he should have expected that - Ellie was smart. Not a nerd, but as smart, as Andrew would say. Perhaps smarter, since her social intelligence was higher. Certainly smarter than Andrew. 

“Chuck?”

And he was stalling again. He sighed. “Sorry, sis.”

“Just tell me what you did.” Ellie was quite unfairly focusing on him, ignoring that Sarah had been with him. And Caridad.

Devon nodded encouragingly. “Yes, please. It’s ruining the mood a little.”

Not just a little. Chuck took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “We went to Sunnydale.”

Ellie nodded. “Showing the bay to Sarah?”

“Not exactly. We had a meeting,” Chuck told her.

“A meeting?” Ellie sat straighter, and her frown turned into a glare. A meeting at the Sunnydale Bay meant demons. Normally. “There?”

“Yes.” He sighed again. “Someone dropped me a note with the words ‘kite affair’.”

“What?” She blinked, then snapped her mouth shut and her glare intensified. He saw how she worked it out. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Straight to the point. No, she was evading the point. She wasn’t asking if it had been Dad. “We wanted to check it out. In case it was a trap.”

“You went with Caridad.” Ellie couldn’t complain about being left out, could she? Not after trying to keep the supernatural out of her world.

“Of course.”

“And?”

He swallowed. “Dad’s alive.” Not a vampire.

She gasped, looking shocked before closing up, an angry expression appearing on her face. “He left us. Made us think he was dead like Mom,” she spat through clenched teeth. “Left us all alone.” Devon stood and moved with his chair to wrap an arm around her shoulders.

Chuck winced. “Uh, yes. Yes, he did - but he had a good reason. Kind of.”

“Reason? Stop stalling, Chuck!”

“Uh. He was hunted by the CIA. Well, he worked for them on a top-secret project before he left, and he didn’t want us to become hostages,” Chuck explained.

“Our father worked for the CIA. And faked his death to cover that up?” Ellie’s voice rose. “Chuck! You don’t believe that, do you?”

“Uh… we confirmed it. Kind of.”

“What?” she snapped. “How would you confirm that? You didn’t try to hack the CIA, did you?”

“What? No, no.” He wet his lips. “You know, Ellie, I kind of work for the CIA.”

“What?”

“I’m a high-level intelligence asset for the CIA. And the NSA, technically,” he told her.

“We’re spies,” Sarah spoke up for the first time.

“And that’s Dad’s fault. Kind of. And Bryce’s,” Chuck added. 

“A spy. Spies.” She was shaking her head. Devon looked caught between interested and incredulous.

“We can prove it,” Chuck said.

“How? Do you have some special spy badge?” Ellie was using sarcasm. And referring embarrassing childhood secrets. Not a good sign.

“We can show you our secret base,” Chuck told her. After they checked that Bane wasn’t in The Castle.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 26th, 2007**

“Your secret base is in a hot dog store.” Ellie shook her head as they entered through the back door. She hadn’t asked after Dad. And Chuck hadn’t volunteered any information. They’d cover that once Elle knew he was telling the truth. Or so he assumed. They hadn’t actually talked about it.

“It’s a cover,” Sarah told her. A little more sharply than Chuck expected.

She opened the secret door in the storage room, revealing the secret stairs before Ellie could comment further. “Follow me. I have to disable the security system.”

Half a minute later, they were in The Castle.

“This… this…” Ellie was at a loss for words, it seemed.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Chuck smiled. It was his base, too, after all. A little, at least. Or a lot since it was built because of him. “And it got a supercomputer!”

“Awesome!” Devon commented.

Ellie ran a hand over the planning table. “This....” Her head snapped up, and she looked a Sarah. “How long has this been going on? With Chuck?”

He frowned. He could answer that himself. “Uh… I was recruited by her.”

“She recruited you? And the CIA built this base? In Burbank?” Ellie faced him, arms crossed. “What is going on here, Chuck? With this, with you, with Sarah? With Dad?”

He smiled weakly. “Uh… good questions?” 

“Good questions?” Ellie snarled.

“Very good questions. Let’s see… uh…” Chuck backpedalled. “It’s all Bryce’s fault!”

“Larkin?”

“The guy who betrayed you?” Devon added. “This started at Stanford?”

“What? No!” Chuck blinked. “Well, in a way it did. Kind of.”

“Chuck…”

He winced. The general would… well, Chuck didn’t know what the general would do to him if she heard about this. But it wouldn’t be pleasant. “Ok, ok. Bryce was a CIA agent. He was recruited at Stanford. And, supposedly to protect me from being recruited as well, he framed me. Dad was working with him, too, I think.”

“Dad got you kicked out of Stanford on false charges?” Elie sounded outraged.

“Uh… I don’t think that’s the important point,” Chuck replied with a weak smile. At her scowl, he quickly cleared his throat. “Anyway… this summer, I received a mail from Bryce. Which dumped a top-secret computer database into my head. A database Bryce apparently destroyed to keep it from falling into the hands of a group of traitors in the CIA.”

“And in the NSA,” Sarah added.

“Yes.” He nodded at her.

“You’ve got a computer in your head?” Devon didn’t seem to believe him.

“I’ve got the data in my head. It was encrypted in a series of images, working through a neural-optical interface,” Chuck explained. “Basically, I’m a walking database with all the secrets the CIA doesn’t want anyone to know in my head. Almost all - there’s nothing about the supernatural in there, and Dad wiped all data about himself before he quit.”

“Dad?” Ellie was still glowering. And sneaking glares a Sarah, Chuck noticed wit a wince.

“He, uh, built the whole thing. Under duress, kind of.”

“That’s a lot of qualifiers here,” Devon said.

“That’s the CIA for you?” Chuck tried to joke.

Ellie didn’t laugh. No one else did, either.

“Moving on. So, the NSA and the CIA sent agents here to protect me. And built the base.” There was no need to go into details there, in Chuck’s opinion.

“They didn’t move you to an existing base and extracted the database?” Devon asked.

So, perhaps some details were needed. “They don’t know how,” Chuck replied. “And they need to keep my identity a secret from the traitors in the organisation.”

“We would have moved him, if not for the Council intervening,” Sarah cut in. He frowned at her, but she ignored it.

“So you’re a CIA agent sent to protect Chuck,” Ellie said, turning to Sarah. “And the hot dog store is a cover.”

“Yes.”

“What about your relationship?” Ellie asked with narrowed eyes.

Uh… Chuck wet his lips.

“It started as a cover and became real,” Sarah said, meeting Ellie’s glare.

“And I knew about the cover from the start,” Chuck hastily added.

Ellie scoffed in return and glared at him. “I bet you thought this was like one of your games.”

Hey! Well… only a little. At the start.

“Chuck knows it’s not a game,” Sarah said. “We’ve been on several missions already.”

“You’re a spy?” Ellie sounded shocked.

“You’re a secret agent?” Devon sounded delighted.

“Uh… yes?”

“How does a database in your head turn you into a spy?” Ellie growled.

“Ah…” Chuck cleared his throat again. “The database kind of works. There’s this algorithm, you know, which manages to link different sets of data to reveal tips and critical information… and you don’t really want those details.” And he shouldn’t reveal that, either.

“You’re using him as a walking computer? On Missions?” Ellie whirled on Sarah.

“Hey! I want to be a spy,” Chuck stepped in. “And it’s well-paid, too!”

“It’s dangerous!” Ellie shook her head.

Devon suddenly blinked. “Larkin was a spy, wasn’t he? He wasn’t a banker killed in a robbery, was he?”

“Chuck!” Chuck winced as Ellie gasped. “You’re risking your life working for the CIA?”

“I’d be in danger no matter what I do,” he defended himself. “Everyone wants the Intersect.”

“That’s the database?” Devon asked.

Oops. Chuck grimaced as Sarah frowned at him. “That’s top-secret. You can’t tell anyone!” he said.

“And Dad built this?” Ellie shook her head. “He worked for the CIA - after leaving us. And now you’re working for the CIA. And dating a spy.”

Uh. Ellie really wasn’t taking this well. “Well, we’re working on getting Dad off the CIA’s most-wanted list. And we won’t be working for the CIA forever, either,” Chuck told her.

“Really?” She didn’t seem convinced.

“Really!” He smiled at her.

She frowned, though. “And what will you be doing after quitting the CIA? Working at the Buy More and Wienerlicious?”

“Uh.” His smile slipped. “We’re kind of planning to work for the Council.”

“CHUCK!”

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 26th, 2007**

Chuck sighed for the sixth or seventh time since Ellie had stormed out. “Perhaps we should have had Dad with us. She might have focused on him,” he said, dropping his head on his arms and closing his eyes.

“Will she calm down?” Sarah asked, sitting down in her usual seat across the table from him.

“Eventually.” He raised his head. “She can carry grudges. Especially when it concerns me.”

“Against you or against everyone else?”

“Uh… Mostly the later,” he admitted. Ellie had never really forgiven the Scoobies for recruiting him for the battle at the graduation. He saw her grimace. “Err… well, she likes you?”

“She liked me as long as she thought I was a hot dog store owner-operator,” Sarah retorted. “I think knowing that I’m a spy changed that.”

He closed his eyes again. “I should have played up the analyst angle. She would have liked me working in a high-paying job.”

“Would that have helped after explaining why you were recruited by the CIA?”

No, it wouldn’t have helped. He shook his head.

“Devon seemed to be taking it well.”

“He thinks it’s awesome,” Chuck said.

“So, it’s not all bad,” Sarah said.

“Are you trying to cheer up me or yourself?” Chuck looked up at her. She winced. He sighed once more. “Well, having family rows over the holidays is a tradition, right? Not that we’re a traditional family.”

That made her laugh a little. “Probably.” 

“So, what do we do now?”

“I’ll talk to her.”

He blinked. “Are you sure? You saw how she stormed off? You heard what she said?”

Sarah nodded. “Yes. But I think I can explain things to her.”

“Woman to woman?” he joked.

“Yes.” She was smiling at him, but she wasn’t very amused. He could tell. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s nothing.” She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. She was about to say something else when she suddenly frowned and looked to the side.

Chuck followed her gaze and saw Morgan coming towards the store. His friend was waving at them. “Ah…”

“I’ll let him in,” Sarah said, sighing as she got up.

“Chuck! Sarah!” Morgan was beaming at both of them as he entered the store. “Caridad said you’d be here. How did it go?” That explained why he was coming to a closed hot dog store on the day after Christmas.

“Ellie’s not speaking to any of us,” Chuck told him. 

“Oh.” Morgan blinked, taken aback. “She doesn’t like you being a spy?”

“I think that would have been OK. But the whole not telling her, meeting Dad without telling her, being a target for a spy ring that has penetrated the CIA wasn’t OK,” Chuck said in a dry voice. “And when she heard that we’re planning to quit the CIA and join the Council…” He grimaced.

Morgan nodded, wincing. “Oh, yes. That would do it. She really doesn’t like the Scoobies.” 

“So, you came here to ask about that?” Chuck asked. There were phones for that.

“What?” Morgan perked up. “Oh, no, I wanted to tell you that I got Kirsten handled.” He grinned widely. “She was far too busy with me to investigate where you were going. Trust me, I’ve got this - you won’t have to worry about her.”

Oh. Chuck forced himself to smile. “As long as you have the situation under control…”

“Oh, definitely.” Morgan nodded several times, then sighed with a dreamy expression. “I’ve got it.”

Chuck glanced at Sarah, who frowned. “You haven’t forgotten that she’s a spy? A honey trap, to be exact,” she told Morgan.

“Oh, believe me, I wouldn’t be able to forget that if I wanted to!” Morgan replied. “She’s… the things she can do… Wow!”

Chuck felt his smile slip. This was really far more than he ever wanted to know about Bane. Or Morgan.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 27th, 2007**

This was a bad idea - Sarah knew that very well. But she couldn’t just do nothing. Not when it was at least partially her fault that Ellie was mad at Chuck. And at Sarah, of course. So she took a deep breath, pasted a smile on her face and rang the doorbell.

It took a little longer than usual, but the door swung open, and Ellie glared at her.

“Hi, Ellie,” Sarah said right away. “We need to talk.”

Ellie frowned at her. “Did you wait until Devon’s shift had started so I would be alone?”

“Yes.” There was no need to deny it.

Chuck’s sister glared at her. “You’ve got us under surveillance.”

“Yes.” She didn’t add ‘for your safety’ - Ellie knew that, and mentioning it would only make her angrier.

Ellie stared at her for half a minute, making Sarah wonder if the doctor would close the door in her face, but then scoffed. “I can’t stop you anyway,” she said, stepping aside.

Sarah nodded and entered, heading to the living room.

“You dragged Chuck into this!” Ellie blurted out almost before Sarah had sat down on the couch. “He’s in danger because of you!”

“He’s in danger because Bryce sent him the Intersect,” she retorted. “I’d have never heard of him otherwise.”

“And why were you sent here?” Ellie crossed her arms.

“To secure the Intersect,” Sarah replied. Honesty was the best policy. And Chuck would probably spoil any cover story anyway.

“The Intersect. Not Chuck.” Ellie sniffed.

“I hadn’t met him yet.” Sarah smiled.

“So you fell in love with him, and that changed everything?” Ellie’s voice was dripping with suspicion. “Love at first sight?”

Tilting her head a little, Sarah replied: “Not at first sight.” Though she had liked him from the start. “That came later. After we started going out as a cover for me protecting him.”

“‘Protecting him’!” Ellie shook her head, scoffing. “How is letting him risk his life protecting him?”

“I’m not ‘letting’ him risk his life,” Sarah replied. “He chose to work with us.”

“Chuck ‘chooses’ to do a lot if he thinks it’s the right thing to do. And people exploit that.”

Ah. They were getting close to the core of the issue. “You think we manipulated him.”

“Of course.” Ellie spat the words.

“Like his other friends.”

Sarah saw Ellie clench her teeth at that. “Friends don’t drag their friends into danger.”

“I don’t think they dragged him into fighting demons,” Sarah replied in a soft voice. “I think they asked for help.”

“Chuck will always help his friends. And they know it.”

“They haven’t asked him to join the Council, did they?”

“They don’t need to. Not when he jumps into a fight whenever they ask.” Ellie pressed her lips together, and Sarah saw her clench her fist.

“And how often does that happen?”

“Who knows? It’s not as if he told me about joining the CIA either! For all I know, he could be hunting demons every night!”

Ah. “Well, he isn’t,” Sara told her. “And he couldn’t tell you about the CIA because it’s classified.”

“And why did he tell me now? Just because Dad’s alive after faking his death and leaving us for fifteen years? For our safety?” Ellie’s voice rose as she shook her head.

Sarah leaned back a little. Ellie wasn’t crying, yet, but it wouldn’t take much. “Your father’s appearance changed the situation.”

“And if that hadn’t happened, Chuck would have kept lying to me.” Ellie blinked a few times, then wiped her eyes.

“He wanted to protect you.” 

“Really? And how’s lying supposed to protect me?”

“You can’t spill a secret you don’t know,” Sarah told her. “And you won’t have to lie to people.”

“I’m already lying to my friends about demons,” Ellie retorted. “What’s another few lies?”

“Your friends aren’t trained spies. They won’t see through your lies.”

“Spies?”

“Like Bane,” Sarah said.

“What? She’s also a spy?”

“She’s spying on us for the CIA.”

“What?”

Sarah suppressed a sigh. “The CIA wants to get control over the Intersect. Which means Chuck. So, since they can’t just press-gang him thanks to the Council’s pressure, they use other means. And since they don’t trust me any more, they sent Bane.”

“Why wouldn’t the CIA trust you any more?”

“That’s actually Chuck’s fault,” Sarah said, faintly chuckling. “He showed me demons, and my superior isn’t cleared for that knowledge. So they grew suspicious when I stopped investigating the secret behind the Council’s influence, as they see it.”

“That’s…” Ellie trailed off.

“I know. That’s why we want to work for the Council. Once the business with the Intersect is dealt with.”

“And how long will that take?”

That was a good question. Sarah winced.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, December 27th, 2007**

“I’ve talked to Ellie.”

“Uh…” At hearing Sarah’s statement, Chuck froze for a moment in the process of grabbing his coke. He hadn’t expected her to talk to his sister right away. But then, she was an experienced spy. She wouldn’t procrastinate.

She chuckled. “It didn’t go too badly.”

“Ah.” That was a relief. A small relief. “But how well did it go?”

Sarah shrugged. “She’s processing what I told her. Which is,” she went on, preempting his question,” is just the truth about how we met and why we didn’t tell her the truth.

“Why I lied to her, you mean,” Chuck corrected her.

“This isn’t your fault,” she replied. “You did what you were told to.”

“That hasn’t worked as an excuse since the Second World War, I believe.”

She frowned at him. Perhaps he shouldn’t equate the CIA to a Nazi government. Although the CIA had been working with former Nazis after the war, hadn’t it? Maybe he could flash if he looked at some history books…

“Chuck?”

“Oh, sorry,” He smiled at her. “I just had a thought.”

“Yes?”

“Uh, not about Ellie. A tangent. History.” He nodded. “I think I should test if the Intersect offers new insights into our history. Cross-reference files and uncover the truth about historical events.”

Was that a wince? Sarah’s smile certainly slipped. “I don’t think the CIA would be happy about you revealing past plots and blunders.”

“Oh. And if it’s the Russians’ plots? Or Soviets’, at the time?”

“That might cause diplomatic troubles if the information were made public.”

“Really?” The Cold War was over, although Russia wasn’t exactly an ally, was it?

“Yes.”

“Alright. No making enemies of diplomats and spies. Got it.”

Another frown, probably at his sarcastic tone. “We’ve got enough enemies already, I think.”

He blinked. “Uh. Good point.” After taking a swallow from his coke, he went on: “So, what’s next? Other than waiting for Ellie to calm down? And waiting for an opportunity to scan my brain?”

“Handling Bane,” Sarah replied. She was looking past his shoulder, he noticed.

He glanced over his shoulder and winced. There were Morgan and Bane in the parking lot, leaning against the hood of a car, kissing. If the car had an alarm it would have gone off, in Chuck’s opinion. “They’re practically crawling over the hood,” he muttered.

“She wants us to see them,” Sarah replied in a rather dark tone.

“Oh.” He frowned. “An attempt to make me jealous?”

“Yes. It’s an old ploy.”

She had told him so before. Still… “What if she’s after Morgan’s secrets?”

“That’s probably a secondary objective.”.

“Well, Morgan’s no fool. He knows about her being a spy,” Chuck said. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

Sarah didn’t say anything, but her expression clearly told Chuck that she disagreed.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, December 27th, 2007**

“...and this is how you change the battery and force a reboot of the system, see?”

“Ah! Like this?”

“No. Like this? See?”

“Ah!”

“Almost. You need to keep this button pushed as it restarts. See?”

“Ah. Thanks!”

“Have a nice day.” Chuck’s smile vanished as soon as the man had turned away. “Some people shouldn’t be allowed to buy computers,” he muttered.

“He probably got it as a gift,” Morgan commented. “As a professional salesman, I can assure you that none of my peers would have sold the man a device that’s so obviously beyond his capabilities.”

“Really?” Those people with more money than ability were among their best clients.

“I’d have sold him a Mac instead,” Morgan went on.

“He wouldn’t have known how to handle that either,” Chuck pointed out.

“Yes, but he would have been Jeff and Lester’s problem:”

“Good thing you didn’t, then,” Chuck told him. “Jeff’s still a little jittery from the whole Slime Lord affair.”

“Did he trigger again from seeing a kid playing with silly putty?”

“Fortunately, no.”

“Props for making people think he was a traumatised war veteran who was wounded in an Iraqi chemical factory, by the way.”

Chuck winced. Not his best excuse, but he had been stressed. The days after Christmas were hell in the Buy More. So many people trying to exchange gifts they didn’t like, or having problems with new electronic devices they had bought for Christmas…

Morgan looked around, then leaned against the Nerd Herd desk. “So, any news from Ellie? Or your Dad? I’m still handling Kirsten, so there’s no rush.”

“Yeah, we’ve seen that.”

“You did?” Chuck’s friend blinked. “Oh. The parking lot? Or the storage room?”

“The storage room?” What had they done there? On second thought, Chuck didn’t want to know. “Never mind. But you are careful, right? She’s a spy, after all.”

“Careful is my middle name!” Morgan grinned, then pushed off the desk when they heard Big Mike yell in the background.

And promptly backed into a customer bending over to check a USB stick on the lower shelf.

As the customer lost his balance and fell into the aisle, causing dozens of electronic merchandise to be spilt all over the floor, Chuck winced.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 27th, 2007**

“I have to admit,” Chuck said, hours later, when he and Sarah were in bed, “Bane might be a cause for concern.”

“Really?”

He glanced at her with a frown. “Morgan might be a bit overconfident.”

“A bit.”

Chuck’s friend wasn’t that bad. “He’s been working as a Watcher-in-training for years.” And still alive, which was the most important test.

“And in that time, he hasn’t passed his Watcher test, has he?”

“Just because he isn’t the best at rote learning doesn’t mean that he’s bad at dealing with a spy,” Chuck said, looking at the ceiling.

“He’s not exactly a ‘player’, either.”

“No.” Chuck sighed. This wasn’t the time to mention that Morgan used to have a t-shirt with ‘I’m a gamer, not a player’ on it. “He’s had a crush on Ellie for years. As a kid. And he’s been pining for Caridad for a while as well.” Two women out of Morgan’s league.

“That history makes him an easy mark for Bane,” Sarah said. “Easy to manipulate someone like him. What does Phil think about this?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Caridad will have told him, but I haven’t yet spoken to him about it,” Chuck told her. He sighed. “What a mess. Ellie’s mad at us. Morgan’s getting manipulated by a spy. And Dad’s planning to fool the CIA. More than he usually does, I mean.”

“You forgot Fulcrum trying to discover your identity so their agents can either kidnap or eliminate you. And the CIA planning to recruit you against your wishes.”

“Right.” Chuck grimaced. “I limited myself to family-related troubles.” It was a good excuse for forgetting, if only for a little bit, about the spies trying to find him. He snorted. “I just realised: I’m like Dad - I’m hunted by spies because of the Intersect.”

Sarah didn’t laugh at his joke. But she patted his hand.

*****


	16. The Sting

**California, Burbank, The Castle, December 28th, 2007**

“So, what happened on your trip up north?”

Bane had shown remarkable patience, in Chuck’s opinion, for waiting two days before asking that question.

“It’s classified,” Sarah replied at once, looking up from the documents she was reading at the planning table in The Castle with a wide smile. She had been waiting to be able to do that, Chuck knew.

“I was under the impression it was related to our current mission.” Bane hadn’t lost her own smile. Did that mean that she hadn’t gained any intel from Morgan, or was she trying to confirm what he might have spilt?

“No, this mission was a joint mission with Caridad’s organisation,” Sarah said.

“And the search for Orion is a side-mission,” Chuck corrected her. “Our primary mission remains finding and neutralising Fulcrum.”

“Which would be greatly helped along if we could get ahold of the creator of the Intersect,” Bane replied. She leaned against the wall near the door, legs crossed. The agent hadn’t yet changed out of the Wienerlicious uniform, which left most of her crossed legs bare, but she wasn’t drawing attention to them. Not that Chuck could tell, at least.

“We don’t even know if it’s Orion behind the payments,” Sarah told her as she stood and walked over towards Chuck, handing him a document - and placing her hand on his shoulder as she leaned over to point at a picture there. “Check this out.”

A picture he already had tried to flash on. But he knew better than to point that out. It wasn’t as if he minded Sarah hanging over his shoulder. He could smell her perfume, feel her body when she leaned a little closer to him…

“Who else could it be?”

“Apart from someone related to a classified matter,” Sarah replied, not moving from where she was touching Chuck, “Chuck fits the recruitment criteria for several criminal organisations.”

“What?”

“He’s a highly-qualified computer specialist, both software and hardware,” Sarah explained. “And until he was cleared, he was registered as having been expelled for cheating from Stanford.”

“I see,” Bane said, nodding. “Frame the sister for money laundering then offer to help - in exchange for favours.”

“Or direct recruitment,” Sarah said as she straightened. “There are many reasons for having Chuck on your payroll.”

“Deniability and discretion.” Bane crossed her arms.

“Money buys loyalty,” Sarah replied. “That’s more important in such a situation.”

Bane made a noncommittal sound. “We should take another look at Grover’s clients, then.”

“That’s what we’re doing,” Sarah said.

Technically, it was true. But they weren’t really investigating - it was more a private game of ‘guess Dad’s victim’. A very cynical game, of course, seeing as they were speculating about someone dying.

Chuck pressed his lips together. They were talking about a drug dealer. Or a mobster. Or a terrorist. Not an innocent victim. Someone who would likely be killed someday anyway, by his competitors, subordinates or the police. Someone whose death would save others.

As often as he told himself that, he still felt guilty, though. Queasy. His father would be killing someone. Premeditatedly. And Chuck would be helping. Was helping, already.

But then, this was what spies did. Sarah had killed more than once in the line of duty. And not all of her victims had deserved to die - Chuck had read the files. Some had merely been working for the wrong people. Security guards. Bodyguards. Soldiers.

He sighed. Did he want to become a spy? It wasn’t as if he had a choice any more, had he? Not as the Intersect. Not with Fulcrum after him. And if he had to choose between a drug dealer or human trafficker and Dad or Ellie…

“Chuck?”

Sarah. Beautiful, strong, deadly Sarah. The spy he had fallen in love with. 

He forced himself to smile at her. “Just feeling a little down at not making any progress with this.” He nodded at the pictures of several of Grover’s clients. It was technically true, from a certain point of view. A very twisted point of view.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get them.” She smiled at him.

“Yes,” Bane added.

Chuck closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Was he moving his lines? He had killed himself, after all. Demons. Monsters. Threats to humanity.

And, perhaps, some monsters who had just been at the wrong place, or forced to fight for a stronger demon.

He focused on the pictures in front of him again. He didn’t want to think about the Wolfram & Hart battle. Not now. 

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 29th, 2007**

“We’re invited to the annual Bartowski New Years Party,” Sarah heard Chuck announce as he entered their apartment.

Sarah smiled at him as she put down the breadbasket on the table. “Does that mean she’s forgiven you?”

“Us you mean,” he replied, stopping on his way to the kitchen to kiss her cheek. She liked the correction. Then he sighed. “Not completely.”

“Ah.”

“Yes. She’s still mad, but not as mad as she was. We’re kind of like Caridad now. Or maybe the Scoobies,” Chuck said as he brought the salad bowl.

“Really?” That didn’t sound too bad.

“Probably. I only have two points for comparison. The Graduation and Wolfram & Hart.”

She’d read about the second incident. Most called it the L.A. Riots of 2004. “So?”

“Well, it’s a little different. Both times, she was mad at me, but relieved that I survived - and it was over. This time, we’re still in danger, and she knows I’m going to take some risks.”

“Ah.” That would change how Ellie felt.

He winced. “And, well… I didn’t lie to her for months, in either case.”

“Oh.” She nodded. 

“But she’s my sister. She’ll come around.” He didn’t sound as sure as he should be, though. “Well, she is coming around, hence the invitation.”

“Or she doesn’t want us to attend another party with more spies and council members,” Sarah pointed out as she carried the pasta to the table.

He blinked. “Oh… I didn’t think of that angle.”

“It might not be true,” Sarah told him. “She probably is warming up.”

“Cooling down, you mean,” Chuck corrected her with a small smile. “I hope so.” He sighed as he sat down. “For fifteen years, it’s just been us.”

She nodded, serving the spaghetti.

“First Mom disappeared. Then Dad, and Ellie had to take over. She did a good job, though she had a lot of support - Sunnydale’s government had lots of experience with caring for orphans.”

And there went the mood. “I’ll work out,” she told him.

He nodded, though it looked a little forced. “So… any news about the hospital thing?”

Ah. “Yes. We should have access to a scanner in two days.”

“Before the party? I don’t suppose we could smuggle Dad to the party afterwards...”

She raised her eyebrows at him - he knew better - and he sighed. “Just a thought. It’s a little unfair that I’m getting all the blame for this situation even though it’s all Dad’s fault.”

Life wasn’t fair. But Chuck deserved better than some callous remark. So she reached out and squeezed his hand before they started eating.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, December 31st, 2007**

“I thought we would be visiting a hospital,” Chuck said as they parked in front of a warehouse.

Sarah shrugged. “That would have been a little harder to arrange without Bane finding out.”

“I’m just… I’d feel a little better if this were a hospital. With that reassuring smell of industrial-strength detergent and bleach.” He was only half-joking.

“On the other hand, this machine will be brand-new - no need to disinfect it,” Sarah pointed out as she opened the side entrance to the warehouse.

“You say ‘brand-new’. I hear ‘untested’,” he replied. “And as an expert for all the problems that brand-new electronic devices can be plagued with, I feel even a little less assured now.”

“Do we need to get some pampers in case you wet yourself?” Casey grunted. The man looked even grumpier than usual, Chuck noticed. Probably because Caridad was present as well.

“I was just making a few comments,” Chuck told the man. “Whoa!” He took the whole set-up in - it looked like something out of Stargate. Or Star Wars. Too jury-rigged for Star Trek.

“We’ve had to improvise a little with the power supply,” Dad commented, standing up and stretching his back. “We’re almost ready. Caridad and Agent Casey were very helpful.”

“Mostly me,” Caridad announced from… above? Chuck looked up. The Slayer was straddling one of the beams below the roof, rigging up something. “Done!” she announced, then pushed off and jumped on a catwalk five yards below her.

Chuck wasn’t the only one who winced the sound that that caused.

“So…” he said, walking over to Dad.

“Just a second, son,” Dad replied without looking up from his PDA. “A few last checks and double-checks… Done!” He beamed at Chuck. “We’re good to go. Perfect timing.”

“Not quite perfect,” Casey had to comment.

“Pretty much perfect, with Los Angeles’ traffic,” Caridad replied.

For a moment, the Slayer and the NSA agent were staring at each other. Then Dad cleared his throat. “So, let’s scan Chuck. There’s a party waiting for him, after all.”

“Right.” Chuck nodded with more confidence than he felt as he stripped off anything metal on him, eyeing the gaping opening of the scanner with growing trepidation. If there was a metal implant in his brain… “Uh, Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t have an actual computer in my head, right?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

That wasn’t really reassuring. He cleared his throat as he dropped his belt. “I mean, what if someone put an implant in my head, and the Intersect took it over?”

“It’s not designed to do that,” Dad told him. “The CIA didn’t want to risk their secrets going viral, so to speak. And how would you get an implant without noticing?”

“Well, there was a demon on the Internet, once, in Sunnydale.”

“What?” Dad was staring at him. The same as everyone but Caridad.

“Ah, right - Moloch.” The Slayer nodded. “I heard the story.”

“Moloch? The god?”

“A god? No, just a demon. Kind of - Willow apparently had a school project where she scanned books in the high school library, and accidentally scanned a cursed book in which a demon was bound or something.” Caridad shrugged. “She’s a little sensitive about the whole thing, so I never got the full story. But the demon took over some techno firm and started building a robot body while trying to seduce her, so Buffy killed it.”

“Fascinating.” Dad’s Spock imitation hadn’t gotten better with age. “A demon on the Internet…”

“Yeah, all the parent groups would freak out if they knew.” Caridad chuckled.

They would probably still blame computer games, Chuck thought.

“I was more thinking of the potential. Mixing magic and technology…” Dad looked pensive.

“That’s dangerous!” Caridad retorted. “Buffy had to deal with killer robots who looked like real people in Sunnydale.”

“What?” Dad looked shocked.

“Yes,” Chuck replied. “Apparently, she had a robot double so good, it could fool an evil god.” He hadn’t actually heard the whole story about the Buffy bot - Buffy was sensitive about it - but he had pieced most of it together from remarks.

“And it was a better sister than Buffy herself, according to Dawn,” Caridad cut in.

Although in hindsight, Dawn probably wasn’t the most reliable source.

“Robot doubles? Able to pass as real people?” Dad was shaking his head. “Good thing the CIA never heard of that.”

“They’d have built fembots and terminators,” Chuck said, shuddering.

“Oh, yes,” Dad agreed. “Part of the Intersect project - and a huge part of the reason I left - was the potential to use the technology to program people as sleeper agents - against their will. If they could have used robots instead…”

“Uh… could you do that?” Chuck asked. “I mean, I don’t want you to do it. But it’d be really useful to know if such a thing is possible.” If someone could program him…

“Theoretically, it might be possible, but I never pursued that particular idea.” Chuck’s father shook his head. “Anyway, we should probably x-ray your head before putting you into the scanner. Fortunately, this firm has x-ray scanners in stock as well. It shouldn’t take long to set up one.”

Half an hour later, Dad nodded at the screen. “I can’t see anything in your head that might be accidentally sent spinning around inside it, so you should be safe.”

Dad really had to work on the reassuring stuff, in Chuck’s opinion. But he was going into the scanner anyway.

*****

“Hm…”

Dad had been studying the results of the brain scan for half an hour without commenting. Chuck couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or not. Casey was reading a gun magazine and doing his best to act as if he were not interested at all. Sarah and Cariad were chatting about the party later today. And probably about Ellie.

He put the computer magazine he had been reading down and cleared his throat. “So, what’s the verdict?” He noted with a little satisfaction that the others paid attention as well.

“Huh?” Dad looked up. “Ah, sorry. I haven’t found anything amiss, yet. You should have access to the skills.”

He should? “So why doesn’t it work?”

“I’m still working on that.”

Chuck heard Casey snort behind him. Probably aimed at him rather than at Dad. Or perhaps at both of them.

“Perhaps your neural net hasn’t connected properly to it,” Dad said, rubbing his chin.

“Wouldn’t you see that on the scan?” Caridad asked. 

“No. Such details won’t show up on a commercial scanner.” Dad shook his head. “It might be a psychological issue, too.”

“So he’s too scared to use the skills?” Casey scoffed with a sneer.

Chuck clenched his teeth. He wasn’t a trained spy, but he wasn’t a coward.

“No,” Dad said, with a frown of his own. Aimed at Casey, Chuck hoped. “It’s probably due to unmonitored integration of the Intersect.”

“So… can that be fixed?” Chuck asked.

“I don’t know - I don’t even know what’s the issue. It might fix itself over time.”

Chuck nodded with his lips pressed together. It was a slim hope, but better than nothing.

*****

Chuck looked rather sad after Orion had left again, Sarah noticed. Did he miss his father so much? She hoped not. Orion had abandoned his family before - he would do it again if he deemed it necessary. No matter the cost to Chuck and Ellie. “Well, now we know that there’s nothing wrong with your brain,” she tried to cheer Chuck up.

He started to smile, but Casey cut in: “Just with your spine.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Chuck’s spine!” Caridad snapped.

Sarah cut in before they could start to bicker. “Let’s do a final sweep to see we didn’t leave anything behind, then go. The warehouse is closed for the holidays, but some people might still come to work if only to escape the arguments at home.”

She had aimed that at Casey and Caridad, but it was Chuck who flinched. Damn. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

He shrugged half-heartedly in response, and she suppressed a sigh. This might be worse than she thought.

Ten minutes later, they were in Sarah’s car, on the way home - and finally outside Caridad’s hearing range. “I wasn’t talking about you and Ellie when I mentioned arguments.”

“I know,” he replied. He wasn’t looking at her, though, and didn’t sound very convincing, either.

“What’s wrong?” she asked after a moment. This wasn’t the time to be subtle about it.

“Nothing.” She caught him glancing at her and raised her eyebrows. “Ok, not nothing,” he went on after a moment. “It’s just… It’s a little much. Dad, Ellie, my brain hosting a computer with more features than I thought and a possible kill switch…”

“Ellie’s calming down. Your father’s got a plan, and we just checked that your brain’s fine.”

“For a given definition of ‘fine’,” he retorted, sounding more than a little bitter. “I can’t use the Intersect.”

“You’ve used it to great effect,” she told him.

“I’ve just been lucky. I can’t control my flashes. They happen - or they don’t. And as Dad has shown, I can’t even trust the database since it was manipulated from the start. And now I know that the Intersect could offer so much more if only I were able to use it.”

That wasn’t good. She pressed her lips together as she overtook a delivery truck, then replied: “You are using the Intersect as intended - and getting great results.”

“Dad’s doing better.”

“We don’t know that,” she retorted. “You two are the only ones using the Intersect at all.”

“And Dad has mad spy skills, while I… don’t.”

Ah. That was the issue. “Your father has a lot more experience. You’ve been doing this for a few months while he’s been at it for fifteen years.”

“I don’t think he started out as a spy,” Chuck told her. “He became one after he used the Intersect on himself.”

“To be a spy is more than just a skillset.” She snorted. “It’s a mindset.”

“Which I also lack.” He sighed.

“You’re doing fine, You’re doing better than I was doing, three months in.”

“Really?” He sounded surprised but quickly started to frown again. “But I feel so useless, compared to…”

Compared to her. She frowned “You’re not useless. You’re a great asset, Chuck. And you’ll be a great spy - with or without the Intersect.”

He snorted but didn’t contradict her.

It was true, anyway. Chuck would be a great spy - eventually. If he survived.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, December 31st, 2007**

Chuck checked himself in the mirror once more. No stubble on the face. No stain on the shirt. Belt matching shoes… not quite. But he wasn’t wearing dress shoes. The rule didn’t apply to sneakers, did it? If the Intersect in his head worked properly, he’d know.

He frowned as he pushed the thought away. He looked sharp enough. Probably.

“Chuck?” Sarah called from the living room.

“Coming!” he yelled in return and left the bathroom. “I was just having a short moment of self-consciousness,” he told her.

She hadn’t dressed up for a fancy evening, but between the fancy top, the tight - very tight - shiny black pants and the ankle boots, she looked great.

“So, once more into the breach.”

“I was wondering about having two parties so close together,” she said as they walked towards the door.

“Well, it started out as a compromise between Ellie and Devon, when they started dating,” he told her. “Or a competition. Ellie did the Christmas Eve Party at her home, and Devon did the End of Year Party at his. And by the time they moved in together, it had become a tradition.”

“Ah.”

“Yes. Devon still tries to add more awesome to ‘his’ party, but it’s quieted down a lot since they were at Uni.” Caridad getting into a tussle with Devon’s old fraternity members had been responsible for that, but there was no need to go into that.

They had a party to enjoy. Well, they had to make an attempt to enjoy it, at least.

*****

An hour later, Chuck still hadn’t managed to enjoy the party. Standing in a corner, he sighed - his mouth hidden behind a glass of cola - as he looked at the room full of slightly inebriated doctors. It really was the Christmas Eve Party reloaded. Christmas Eve 2.0. There were mostly the same guests - a few who had gone to visit their family had been replaced by a handful who had just returned from their family visit, but overall there were no new faces. The music was the same as well, only with fewer Christmas songs. At least the food was different - Devon had tried something new and gone for a mix of Asian and Hawaiian dishes for the buffet. 

The Red Thai Curry had been good, though Chuck wasn’t quite as fond of the Loco Moco. “Why are the other guests gushing about it?” he asked Sarah as he took another bite out of the burger.

“Nostalgia,” she replied. “It’s a cheap, filling meal, so it’s popular among students.”

“Ah! A taste of a supposedly happier time, then,” he said, nodding. Chuck certainly didn’t remember his time at Stanford very fondly. Not after his expulsion. “At least Ellie stopped trying to hitch me up with one of her colleagues.”

“Oh?” Sarah leaned a little closer.

“Didn’t I tell you about my last birthday party? Ellie had organised it as a surprise. Just imagine this party, but with a cake.” He snorted. “I left for my apartment after an hour, and no one except Ellie noticed. Well, from this crowd.” He nodded at the doctors. “Morgan and Caridad noticed as well, of course. And tried to drag me to a demon hunt.” Right when Ellie had tried to drag him back to the party. That hadn’t been fun.

“Ah.” Was Chuck imagining things, or was Sarah eyeing the assembled female guests with a more hostile expression?

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I feel the same urge to leave that I felt back then. This isn’t my crowd.” For different reasons, now, but still. Of course, it wasn’t Caridad’s crowd either, but the Slayer would never turn down free food. She was currently cleaning up the Curry parts of the buffet.

“Why don’t we leave, then?”

“And make Ellie mad? Madder, I mean.” He shook his head. “Besides, Morgan’s bringing Bane.”

“He’s late,” Sarah remarked.

“Uh…” Chuck a good idea about what was holding up Morgan and Bane. Mainly because Morgan had called and told him.

“Ah.” And judging by her expression, Sarah had a good idea as well.

He shrugged. “Well, they’re both adults.”

“And she’s a spy,” Sarah all but hissed.

Chuck nodded. In some ways, Sarah was like a Slayer. She reacted to Bane like Caridad reacted to supposed ‘poachers’ in her ‘territory’. Not that Chuck would ever tell either that. “So… dessert? Apart from the bar, this is the best part of the party unless you like discussing medical procedures and emergencies while you eat.” And Chuck knew better than to get drunk any more. With Fulcrum after him, he had to keep his wits all the time.

Something else that set him apart from the others in the room. He sighed again.

“Hm?” Sarah glanced at him.

“I just realised that I started to think of everyone else here as ‘civilians’. Well, everyone else but Caridad,” he added before the Slayer could glare at him.

“Ah.” Sarah nodded. “Yes, that’s bound to happen. Although you weren’t exactly a civilian before this, were you?”

“The demon hunting?” He shook his head. “I didn’t actively hunt demons. I just helped out when there was an apocalypse in the area. I only fought twice in those, too. Three times if you count the Slime Lord.”

“Most people never fight at all,” she replied. “And you didn’t just fight when you had no choice - you choose to put your life on the line.”

“If we hadn’t fought, the Mayor would have eaten all of us and probably destroyed most of the county. Or California.” The Scoobies hadn’t been too precise about the area of effect of the Ascension. “And Wolfram & Hart were planning to destroy the world.”

“Still, not many would have done what you did,” she told him. “Most would have fled in panic.” She smiled. “And you grew up in Sunnydale.”

That made some sense. “I guess I haven’t been a civilian at all, then.” He snorted. “More like a member of a militia. Or the National Guard.”

She laughed as well. “Don’t let Casey hear that.”

“I’m not suicidal.” After a moment, he added: “Thank you.”

In response, she leaned over and wrapped her arm around his waist.

Perhaps he could enjoy the party anyway.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, January 1st, 2008**

“Good morning, Agent Casey, Agent Walker, Agent Bane, Mr Bartowski.”

General Beckman looked far too crisp for a briefing on January 1st of any year. Well, so did everyone else, Chuck thought. Casey looked ready for war - as always. Bane looked ready to seduce someone. Sarah looked beautiful. Which she was, but which was still better than she had any right to look like after last night.

He forced himself to sit straighter. “Good morning, general,” he said together with the others. Perhaps he could wing this.

“Did you have a rough night, Mr Bartowski?”

Or perhaps he couldn’t. “Uh, no, general. Just a short one,” he replied.

The general raised an eyebrow at Sarah for that quip but didn’t pursue it further than slightly frowning. “You’ve got a new mission.” Her picture shrunk, and another appeared on the screen, showing a handsome blond man. “This is Dirk Albert Martinez. We suspect him to be involved in industrial espionage focused on startups in the Silicon Valley. Your objective is to infect the stolen data he’s carrying with a worm that will allow us to find his accomplices and employers.”

Chuck frowned as he realised that if not for Bryce - and his Dad - he might have been one of the man’s targets. “Are they posing as investors?” he asked.

“Exactly. Did you flash?” Beckman answered.

“No, ma’am. Just a deduction,” he replied.

“Ah.”

He tried not to show his annoyance at the dismissal. He wasn’t just an interface for the Intersect.

“Martinez normally uses the same method: He poses as an investor to gain access to a firm’s secrets. If that doesn’t work, he usually seduces an employee with access to the data centre and uses her to copy what he’s after,” Beckman went on. “You will use your cover as Charles Carmichael to lure him in, Mr Bartowski.”

“I don’t actually have a software firm,” Chuck pointed out.

“You don’t need one; the electronic trail of one will suffice. You will make contact in Los Angeles on a business trip with your personal assistant, with the prototype of a new search algorithm in your possession. According to his psychological profile, Martinez won’t be able to resist the opportunity to acquire it.”

That sounded easy. Although… “My personal assistant ma’am?” Sarah usually posed as his girlfriend.

“Agent Bane will be playing that role.”

Oh.

“Yes, ma’am.” Bane sounded eager.

And Sarah looked angry.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, January 2nd, 2008**

Standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, Chuck straightened his tie - or tried to - for the third time. It still looked a little crooked. Special Agent Charles Carmichael wouldn’t wear a crooked tie, would he? On the other hand, Charles Carmichael, software entrepreneur and nerd, might. He had to look the part of a mark, after all.

Chuck sighed as he left the bathroom. His room wasn’t quite a suite, but spacious enough to come close and offered a great view of the city. A good fit for his cover. And the mission wasn’t dangerous. Industrial espionage. Not drug dealing or spies going after arms research. Nor were demons involved - Caridad had checked out Martinez last evening. Apparently, The Castle’s soundproofing still wasn’t Slayer-proof. Well, that wasn’t a problem for Chuck, and Beckman and Bane didn’t know about it.

He tensed anyway as he heard knocking at the door. Just because a mission was supposed to be safe didn’t mean it was actually safe. “Yes?” he called out, hand slipping to the taser hidden in his pocket.

“Room service.”

He blinked. That was… The door opened, revealing Sarah dressed as a maid and pushing a trolley inside.

She smiled at him - though a little toothily - as she closed the door behind her. “Casey’s already in the hotel bar. I’m covering the hallways.”

“Ah.” He nodded. They were the backup. Just in case. “Good cover,” he said, then clenched his teeth at the banality of the comment.

Sarah smiled, though. “It’s a good way to carry weapons,” she said, nodding at the covered trolley. “And it explains my presence in your room.”

Her rather sultry smile made him blush. Who hadn’t had a fantasy about a maid and a hotel room? Her outfit wasn’t the kind advertised as ‘sexy maid’ for Halloween parties, but it certainly was sexy. In a classy way. He swallowed. “I see.”

She nodded in return and took a step closer to him, reaching out to straighten his tie. “All part of the service,” she whispered.

How long did he have until he had to be at the bar? Based on Martinez’s usual schedule… twenty minutes. Not long enough for a fantasy. But, perhaps…

Someone else knocked on the door. “Mr Carmiachel?”

Bane. 

*****

Sarah took a step back, her smile slipping, as the other agent entered.

Bane was dressed for business, Sarah noticed. Not quite conservatively enough to work in a bank, but close enough. The skirt was a little too short, ending right above the knees, the shirt a little too tight, the heels a little too high, the hair a little too stylish. Just what a personal assistant with a crush on her employer might wear. It would present Martinez with an easy but not too easy target - Sarah knew how this worked, having done it before herself.

But she also knew that this was aimed at Chuck as well. Which was one reason she was here, of course. With an outfit she had carefully picked for the occasion. Something Bane realised immediately, of course - for a moment, Sarah saw the other agent’s lips twist in a frown before Bane smiled again.

“Agent Walker. I take it the hallways are safe then?”

“Yes,” Sarah replied, matching the woman’s smile.

“Good,” Bane lied. “Are you ready, sir?” she turned to Chuck, and her smile changing from polite to seductive.

“Uh… ‘sir’?” Chuck blinked.

“I’m your personal assistant,” she replied. “It’s good to stay in your role. Helps with maintaining your cover.”

“Uh, of course,” Chuck answered, nodding at the platitude. And missing the subtle dig at Sarah.

“There’s still time until the mission starts,” Sarah said. “We wouldn’t want to appear too eager, would we?” A short step and she was in front of Chuck, reaching for his tie to fix it.

“Thanks.” He smiled at her. Warmly. Not nervously. Not slightly wary.

She leaned forward. “Carmichael’s supposed to have a girlfriend at home,” she whispered - loud enough for Bane to hear. “This will help with that cover story.” She kissed him. 

And then she had to fix his tie again. But Bane wouldn’t have any trouble to play the role of the frustrated personal assistant whose boss ignored her crush because he was in love with his partner.

Sarah refrained from smiling triumphantly at Bane. But she enjoyed the other agent’s expression very much.

*****

Chuck straightened as he stepped out of the hotel room. Charles Carmichael was a successful businessman. Wealthy, smart and suave. Pretty much the opposite of Chuck Bartowski. But for the smart part. Although both had a great girlfriend. Partner.

He took a deep breath. Sarah had been right again - kissing her had certainly helped. This mission was in the bag.

The hotel bar was next to the lounge - he could see a couple of guests with fancy drinks on the couches there as he passed through. A glance at the clock on the wall told him that they were right on time. Well, he had known that already. But double-checking never hurt. Usually.

Inside, Martinez was leaning against the bar, as expected, watching the room. And Casey was playing the bartender. Perfect.

Chuck made a beeline to the free spot next to the mark, putting his elbow on the bartop and flashing his credit card. “A whisky cola for me and… a Long Island for you, Marcy?” he turned to address Bane who had just reached the bar.

“I shouldn’t drink, sir,” she replied.

“Nonsense!” he said, shaking his head. “We got the contract. That deserves a toast. Live a little, Marcy!”

“If you say so, sir.” Bane reluctantly nodded, placing herself between Chuck and Martinez. 

“Good work there, by the way,” Chuck went on while Casey fixed their drinks. “Your presentation really sold our new algorithm.”

“Thank you, sir.” Bane beamed at him. She was good at her role. If Chuck didn’t know better, he would have fallen for her act.

And Martinez was paying attention, Chuck noted. As planned.

Their drinks arrived, and Chuck raised his glass at once. “Cheers!”

“Ah… cheers, sir.”

He took a large swallow - Casey had toned down the whisky, a lot, so there was no danger of getting drunk. Martinez would ‘t know that, of course. 

Bane took a sip of hers, then coughed and stumbled, taking a step back and bumping into Martinez. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” she blurted out, turning to smile at the man.”

“No worry.” Martinez returned her smile with perfect teeth. “No harm done.”

The agent nodded and turned back to Chuck. The bait had been set, and judging by Martinez expression, he was nibbling already. Time for the next step. Chuck drained his drink. “Ah. I needed that!” he exclaimed as he set his glass down.

A moment later, his phone went off, as planned - Casey had sent the signal to Sarah. “Cindy?” Chuck said, a little loudly. “Good news, darling! We got the contract!”

“Great, Charles!”

“I told you so, didn’t I?” Chuck went on. “Marcy worried, the dear. You know how she is!”

“Oh, yes,” Sarah replied. 

“So, I was thinking we should celebrate that. How about we take out the yacht tomorrow? Just you and me?”

As Chuck went through the script, Bane downed her own drink. She was playing her role so well, Chuck almost felt bad for her.

Not for Martinez, though, who was smiling behind her back.

*****

“I feel like a peeping tom,” Chuck commented an hour later, back in his hotel room, as he nodded towards the laptop on the desk. Which showed the feed from the camera Bane had hidden in her room. 

“We’re her backup,” Sarah said. “We need to be ready to intervene at a moment’s notice.”

“I know. I still feel weird,” Chuck replied. On the screen, Bane was currently busy being undressed by Martinez.

“What? You getting embarrassed by seeing two naked people?” Casey chuckled. “Never watched porn?”

Chuck did his best to ignore the remark. There wasn’t any good answer to that question.

“She’s doing what she does best,” Sarah said.

Well, Bane certainly knew what she was doing, Chuck couldn’t deny that. Martinez was still thinking that he was seducing her, exploiting a vulnerable moment of a naive, heartbroken woman. 

But to see - looking away wouldn’t be very professional, not for a spy - her getting it on with Martinez… They were working with the woman. And Bane knew they were watching. Wouldn’t that be awkward in the morning?

Worse, Bane was, officially, with Morgan. Was this cheating? Morgan knew that she was a spy trying to turn him into an informant on Chuck and the others. But Chuck knew his friend - he wasn’t the kind of person to keep his emotions out of such a relationship. Should he tell him? It might help remind Morgan that Bane was a honey trap - a spy specialised in seducing her marks.

But what if it broke Morgan’s heart? Chuck knew that it was likely that Bane would be breaking Morgan’s heart anyway, but to be the one who ruined this for his friend… No. He couldn’t do this to Morgan. 

He was too much of a coward for this.

“They’re finally at it,” Casey interrupted Chuck’s thoughts. “I bet he won’t last longer than fifteen minutes.”

Chuck didn’t look at the screen. The audio would be enough. And others were watching anyway.

Casey certainly didn’t seem to be embarrassed. Nor did Sarah.

She might have done a mission like this herself. But would she still do such a mission if she were ordered to?

Chuck didn’t dare to ask her.

*****


	17. The Vengeance Plot

**California, Burbank, The Castle, January 3rd, 2008**

“Excellent work, agents, Mr Bartowski.” Beckman smiled, though it looked more polite than genuine. At least Chuck thought it did - he didn’t know the woman very well. He had never met her in the flesh, after all; he only ever talked to her through video calls. “The virus you planted is working; we’ll soon know the extent of Martinez’s network.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Casey snapped. Chuck refrained from mentioning that it was a worm.

“Other teams will take down his organisation once we have gathered enough information,” the general went on. “You’ll be contacted once there’s a new mission for you. Until then, continue with your current duties.”

That didn’t sound like Beckman expected their search for Orion to pan out. On the other hand, the general was a spy as well, wasn’t she? So this might be disinformation. Or a subtle reminder for Bane to continue spying on them. Or both.

Chuck sighed when the general’s image faded out, and the screen turned dark. He still didn't have a grip on the higher levels of spy work.

“Well, that’s one mission accomplished. Anyone up to celebrate it?” Bane stood. “The night’s still young.”

That was putting it mildly - it was barely after six.

“We’ve already got plans for the evening, sorry,” Sarah said, putting her arm around Chuck.

He managed not to blurt out ‘we have?’ and nodded instead. “Yeah, sorry.”

Casey grunted something about having to do maintenance on the armoury. Or his own arsenal. The man had more weapons than some museums.

“Ah, I’ll go out with Morgan then. See you tomorrow.” Bane smiled and left.

And Chuck remembered that he still hadn’t thought of a way how to break the news that Bane had seduced a mark to Morgan.

Well, that could wait another day. It wouldn’t be nice to tell Morgan right before he went out with the spy. He cleared his throat. “So… where are we going for dinner? Or is it a surprise?”

“It’s a surprise. We’ll have to dress up,” Sarah replied.

“Ah.” He nodded. She didn’t look flustered at all. So, this was probably not just a way to shoot down Bane’s offer, but planned beforehand. Or Sarah was just good at improvising.

Chuck wasn’t about to ask her, of course.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, January 3rd, 2008**

Three hours later, Chuck still didn’t know if Sarah had been improvising. Reservations at ‘Angelo’s’, a pricey but popular Italian restaurant, weren’t easy to get on short notice, but not too hard either. Especially for a spy.

Not that he cared much any more, anyway. Dinner had been great, and they had started clubbing afterwards, hitting the same clubs they had visited when they had gone on their first date. It hadn’t been much over three months ago, but it felt much longer.

So much had changed since that day. He had a great girlfriend, an important job, he had graduated from Stanford, he had discovered that his dad was alive… If not for the fact that a secret organisation was after him and the CIA after his father, this would be perfect.

He still hadn’t learned to dance, though. Certainly not like Sarah. Watching her move was just… He shook his head with a smile when she danced closer, rolling her shoulders in that way of hers that… He gasped when she turned in front of him, then pressed her back into his chest. Oh.

She turned back to face him just as the music changed to a slower song and wrapped her arms around him as she drew close. “So, like my surprise?” she whispered into his ear.

“Totally. This was a great idea,” he replied. “Perfect!”

She smiled, then leaned in to kiss him.

And then his phone started to vibrate in his pants. He cursed himself as he broke the kiss and pulled it out. “Sorry,” he mouthed to her, “could be important.”

It was. It was a message from Morgan.

_Trouble with demons. need help. Los Globos._

Great. One perfect evening, ruined. He grimaced and leaned towards the frowning Sarah. “Demon trouble with Morgan and Bane,” he told her. “Los Globos”.

She nodded curtly, then turned and started to move towards the exit. He followed her.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Silver Lake, January 3rd, 2008**

A perfect evening, ruined. Sarah wasn’t happy at all. But you didn’t let your friends and partners hanging if they needed help. Even if they were Grimes and Bane, and probably deserved whatever trouble they had found. Los Globos - there had been vampire trouble in that club when Sarah had visited it before.

“Caridad’s coming too,” Chuck told her as she parked her car. “As is Casey.”

Sarah nodded - she hadn’t expected anything else. “What about Phil?”

“I don’t know. He’s usually, uh, mission control, but he might be on the way as well, once we know more.”

‘Once we know more’, right. Grimes hadn’t sent another message with more information, and Bane hadn’t answered her phone at all. That wasn’t a good sign. Not at all. Especially since the phones were still registering on the closest cell tower, as Chuck had found out.

Of course, there could be a simple explanation for the lack of calls. But they were dealing with demons, not spies.

She checked her gun and her purse, where she kept her vials of holy water, before getting out of the car.

“Should have taken a crossbow,” Chuck whispered as he joined her. “I feel under-armed.”

“You used to walk around with a stake and a vial,” she reminded him as they crossed the street between two stretch limousines.

“I wasn’t hunting demons or spying back then,” he replied. “Perhaps a concealed gun wouldn’t be a bad idea. Casey keeps ribbing me about it.”

That sounded like Casey. ‘Any man without a gun is underdressed’ or something like it. “Guns don’t work well on demons.”

“They work well on spies. And with the right ammunition, they work on some demons,” Chuck said.

Sarah couldn’t reply - they reached the entrance to the club, and the bouncers wouldn’t react well to overhearing such talk. Instead, she smiled and made a comment about dancing and drinking as they entered the club. 

“Should we split up?” Chuck asked.

“No.” He wasn’t trained enough for that.

“Never split the party, got it,” he replied.

Close enough, and easier on him. “Use the scanner now,” she told him. They were inside and should be able to find the phones now.

“Alright.” He pulled the scanner out and started to move it around. Sarah winced and stepped in front of him to shield him from view - at least partially.

“This way!” he said, pointing towards a dark corner - as Sarah had expected.

They found the two phones on the ground, under a couch there. Bane’s had a broken screen and Grimes’ a cracked case.

“Demons,” Chuck said. “You need a lot of force to crack that case on this floor.”

“Unless they threw it against the wall,” Sarah pointed out.

He went to check it with the flashlight app on his phone, then shook his head. “I’m stupid! We’ll have Caridad check them.”

Sarah nodded, though she knew she should have thought of that as well.

They did a quick sweep through the club on the way out, including the toilets. No sign of Grimes or Bane.

Caridad was just dismounting from her bike outside when they left the club. “What do you have?” she blurted out.

“We found their phones,” Chuck explained, pulling them out.

The Slayer sniffed them, then growled. “Demon!”

“Can you track them?”

Caridad nodded. “Let me check around the club.” She took off at a run.

Sarah looked at Chuck. “Uh… we best wait here,” he said. “Caridad won’t take long.” She saw him bite his lower lip. “Those must have been demons who can take a human form since Morgan and Bane were taken inside the club without anyone noticing.”

“Or they distracted the security,” Sarah retorted. “Human-looking or not, people usually notice if you drag a couple out of the club.”

“Right.” Chuck wet his lips. “That would mean… I don’t think demons would hack the security cameras. But they could’ve bribed the security. Or impersonated them.”

“Either would be possible.” And throw a really bad light on the club’s security. Not that the standards for bouncers were very high to begin with.

“I found their tracks,” Caridad announced, startling Sarah - the Slayer had approached them from behind. “Track leads that way.”

“Are you sure?” Chuck asked.

“Yes,” Caridad spat. In a slightly softer voice, she added: “I could clearly smell Morgan’s aftershave.”

“Ah!” Chuck suddenly smiled. “That’s why he uses that hideous concoction!”

“No,” Caridad replied, turning away. “He thinks it smells manly.”

“Oh.”

But the Slayer had already taken off again, and Sarah and Chuck had to struggle to keep up as she led them down the street, then into a side alley. Sarah still managed to check with Casey and keep him updated - the NSA agent was still on the way to the area but should catch up with them soon.

Sarah hoped it would be soon enough.

*****

Chuck clenched his teeth as he ran after Caridad. Demons, in Los Globos - what were the odds? Alright, clubs did attract demons, what with the bad lighting, the opening hours being friendly to the sunlight-challenged, and the number of drunk people ready to ‘go home’ with anyone half-way attractive, but… hadn’t Caridad hunted enough demons in that particular club for the news to spread? Perhaps those demons were new arrivals? But why Morgan?

Was this a hit on the resident Watcher-in-training? Bait for Caridad? A challenge? Or just coincidence? It wouldn’t be the first time, but… assuming so usually was a bad idea. “How… much… longer… until… we… meet… Casey?” he managed to ask while running. He really needed to step up his training.

Before Sarah could answer, Casey’s car shot around the corner - his private car - and slid to a stop nearby, half of it on the sidewalk.

Chuck had seen worse parking.

The NSA agent left the car, a duffel bag in hand. Sarah pointed ahead. “This way! They changed course,” she snapped before Chuck could start to explain, and Casey fell in with them. He wasn’t wearing his “Federal Suit” or black spy getup, Chuck noticed. Private car, slacks and shirt - had he been out in town? That would explain his late arrival.

More trouble with Caridad? Chuck forced the thought away. He had to focus on Morgan. And Bane.

His phone vibrated. He pulled it out. Morgan! No - Chuck’s friend had lost his phone. It was Caridad. 

_Construction site._

Damn.

Construction sites were almost as bad as sewers when it came to demons. “Uh... “ he blurted out as they turned the corner - he had fallen behind a little reading the message, “They’re… in there!”

The construction site - half an apartment building - was looming ahead, raising three floors, the fourth still under construction, no windows set anywhere yet, just raw concrete walls and stairs. And, presumably, basements.

He really wished he had a crossbow with him. And a flamethrower.

Caridad hadn’t waited for them - not that Chuck had expected her to; Slayers generally didn’t do patience well even when lives weren’t on the line. Chuck looked up as they approached the building. He couldn’t see anything or anyone moving up there. Granted, it was dark, but things such as walls and stairs breaking, which was normal for Slayer fights, tended to be noticeable even at night. “Basement it is, I think,” he said.

Casey grunted and opened his bag, pulling out a pair of crossbows as well as some blades. And an axe!

Chuck smiled when he took the axe and smaller crossbow. “Thanks!”

Casey grunted again and entered the building, followed by Sarah. So, Chuck would be the rear guard. Or rear bait, as Faith sometimes called it. Swell.

Although with Caridad ahead of them, the odds of a demon laying an ambush were low. At least Chuck told himself that as the three of them sneaked down the dark, unfinished stairs. 

“Tracks on the ground,” Casey announced.

“What kind of tracks?” Chuck asked.

“Do I look like a cavalry scout or forensic expert?” the agent retorted.

“No, of course not!” Chuck replied. “I was just asking… You know, to find out who and how many are waiting for us.” He heard the sound of something breaking, followed by a scream. “Or fighting,” he added.

But Casey and Sarah were already rushing down, leaving him to run after them. Again.

They passed the body of a dead demon - or human; there was no time to stop and check, and Chuck didn’t see any horns or fangs on the severed head - and reached the second basement. Where Caridad was fighting half a dozen snarling demons. Snarling humanoid demons with red eyes.

And there were Morgan and Bane, stuck in a cage. A cage the demons had started to surround with wood, Chuck realised with a gasp. They were going to burn them!

“Chuck! They’re bulletproof!” Morgan yelled. Then he screamed as one demon dropped a torch and the wood went up in flames.

But a moment later, Caridad rammed a demon into it with a shoulder charge, scattering the burning logs. And Sarah and Casey moved in with their swords, literally crossing blades with the demons.

Chuck, though, gritted his teeth and circled around the fighting. He Dodged the burning logs that rolled over the floor courtesy of Caridad and rushed towards the cage. He had to get them out - Morgan was coughing already, and Bane didn’t look well either. And the smoke and heat from the logs that hadn’t been scattered weren’t helping Chuck, either.

There was a padlock on the cage door - nothing a good axe couldn’t handle. Or a bad axe. After a few blows, with hardly any missing and hitting the bars, the lock split and Chuck could open the door.

Before he could help them get out of the cage, though, Morgan yelled: “Behind you!”

Chuck dived to the side, but something still hit him, and he was thrown right on top of a burning log. He hit the wood with his side, pain flaring up in his ribcage. And then he was on fire. His shirt was burning. Chuck screamed and rolled off the log, then cried out some more at the pain in his side that that caused. He was on fire! Drop and roll. Drop and roll. He was already dropped, so he had to roll. Roll! Roll!

He rolled. A sword hit the ground where he had been a moment before. Screaming even more loudly, he rolled again. And again, avoiding another blow from the sword. Then he hit the wall and couldn’t roll any further, and the demon was raising its sword with an evil, toothy smile, and now it’d cleave him apart…

Morgan tackled the demon from behind, screaming like a banshee. Both crashed down on Chuck, knocking the breath out of him. The demon howled, lashing out, but Morgan was holding on to its sword arm, pulling it back.

Chuck caught a painful blow to the stomach, another to the cheek, but managed to pull out his vial of holy water, and when Morgan pulled the monster off him for a moment, he splashed its contents into the demon’s face.

The screams that produced were hideous and drowned out everything else. Fortunately, Morgan used the opportunity to grab the sword it had dropped and finished the thrashing, wailing demon from behind. Well, hacked it several times to bring it down - and shut it up - then finished it off.

Chuck shook his head - his ears were ringing - and forced himself to get up. There were still… no demons left standing any more. He blinked.

“Chuck!” Sarah rushed towards him. “Are you hurt?”

“Uh…” He was hurt, wasn’t he? But he could still walk, probably run and fight. Did that count? He blinked again. Had he caught a blow to the head?

“Chuck! Your shirt!”

Oh… It was smouldering. Chuck wanted to make a joke about being smouldering hot, but Sarah ripped the shirt off him before he found the words. He wanted to joke about ripping his shirt off, but by the time he thought of it, they were rushing up the stairs.

And then they were outside the building and moving towards Casey’s car. And each time he coughed from all the smoke in his lungs, Chuck’s ribs felt as if they were still on fire. Or something like it. He wasn’t the only one. Not the only one coughing. Bane was too, as was Morgan.

“We should have quit smoking earlier,” Chuck commented.

No one laughed even though that was quite funny.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, January 3rd, 2008**

Chuck was finally sleeping. Sarah brushed a lock of hair from his forehead and sighed. He looked quite vulnerable and hurt in the hospital bed. But he would be fine. That was the most important thing, in Sarah’s opinion. According to the doctors who had treated him, he had a minor concussion, some minor burns - the logs had been soaked in gasoline, but not much had clung to his shirt - and his bruised ribs would be hurting for some time, plus assorted other bruises, but he would be fine. He hadn’t suffered any damage to his lungs from the smoke, either. But he would have to stay at the hospital for observation for the rest of the night because of his concussion.

Grimes and Bane were in similar shape, minus the concussion. Which meant they weren’t asleep yet.

And could answer questions.

She left Chuck’s room, feeling slightly guilty for doing so, and headed to Grimes’ room - after checking if there were nurses around; visiting hours were over and she wasn’t supposed to be in the hospital any more. Grimes was still awake, typing on his phone. Sending messages, probably to Bane. His smile died when he met her eyes. Good.

“What exactly happened?” she asked.

He talked.

*****

“...and then I noticed those guys who had been eyeing us had red eyes which glowed in the dark. Reflected the light, actually, I think.”

That explained how he had recognised them as demons. She nodded. “And then?”

“They had us surrounded and knocked our phones out of our hands right after I texted Chuck, but Kirsten took one of them down with some martial arts move, pushed him into the others and we managed to slip away.”

Or they had been allowed to run away because they would have been easier to catch outside, where no club security and no witnesses were present.

“So, we ran, but they were close on our heels, and, well… We got captured.” He smiled weakly at her.

She refrained from rolling her eyes. “And got dragged to a basement which had been prepared to burn you alive.”

That made him grimace. “Uh, yes.”

“Why? Did they know you’re working for the Council?” Was this an attack aimed at provoking a response? As a distraction? Or to frame someone?

“I don’t think so. They said they were after Kirsten.”

What? “They were after Bane?” Sarah couldn’t believe it. The spy knew about demons? Was involved enough to be hunted by demons?

“So they said. They weren’t locals, so they didn’t recognise me. I told them I knew the Slayer, but they didn’t believe me,” Grimes replied. “But they were arguing about it, so it helped.”

“Did they say why they were after her?”

“Err…” Grimes bit his lower lip. “I think they were hired - one of them said they weren’t getting paid enough to tangle with a Slayer, but they were talking in a weird demon dialect, so I couldn’t understand everything.”

“Demon mercenaries?” That sounded far-fetched.

“Oh, yes. Many demons work as mercenaries - usually for other, more powerful or richer demons,” Grimes explained. “Buffy had to deal with a lot of such demons. Like the Order of Taraka. They’re assassins, and Spike hired them to go after her. That was before he got a soul and joined the Council, of course.”

“Ah.” She’d heard about that particular vampire, though she had never met him - apparently, he avoided Los Angeles as long as Harmony stayed here. Sarah could understand that. “So, someone hired them. Did they mention who did it?”

“They said ‘Mathew sends his regards’ when they were preparing to burn us.”

And he couldn’t have said that right away? Sarah kept a leash on her anger. Grimes wasn’t a trained spy. And he was Chuck’s best friend. He still should’ve mentioned the name without having to be prompted.

“It sounds like a vampire. No last name,” Grimes added.

“Bane would know who this ‘Mathew’ is. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been ordered to tell her,” Sarah said.

“Ah, yes. Of course.” Grimes frowned. “I would have never expected her to know a vampire.”

She’d fooled him completely. As Sarah had expected. “We’ll have to ask her some questions.”

“Err… right.”

Bane’s room was next to Grimes, though Sarah had to let a nurse pass before she could head over. It as too easy - Chuck would need better protection. It would be best if she stayed with him.

Bane was also still awake when they entered her room, staring at her phone. She didn’t look as attractive as usual, not without her hair and makeup done and wearing a hospital gown. “Oh.” the agent commented when she spotted Grimes behind Sarah.

“Debriefing,” Sarah told her. “Who’s Mathew?”

“That’s classified!” Bane snapped.

“Mathew hired people who fall under his organisation’s purview,” Sarah retorted, nodding at Grimes. “I’m cleared for the information.”

“It’s a classified CIA operation,” Bane insisted.

“Which endangers our mission here.” Sarah walked up to Bane’s bed and leaned over. “They sent mercenaries to kill you - and tell you why. The mercenaries are dead, but their employer - Mathew - won’t stop. We need to know how to find him.”

“He’s dead!” Bane replied. “I killed him myself. It has to be someone else.”

Sarah frowned. It wasn’t implausible - if someone wanted to take revenge for Mathew, letting Bane know why she was to be killed without revealing their own identity would be smart. And yet, since demons were involved, all bets were off. “We need the information,” she said.

“It wouldn’t be the first time a death was faked in our business,” Grimes chimed in. 

“Agent Larkin’s death was faked,” Sarah agreed. The first time only, though.

“I shot him dead,” Bane said.

“It could’ve been a double,” Sarah retorted. Or a demon that regenerated its wounds.

“I can’t release this information without authorisation.” Bane shook her head.

She was serious, Sarah realised. “Then we’ll have to ask the general. Let’s go.” This couldn’t wait.

“Err…” Grimes looked at her, then at Bane, then back at her before he followed her out of the room.

The hallway was clear.

“So… back to The Castle?” Grimes asked.

“No,” she told him. “This hospital isn’t secure enough to leave Chuck here without a guard.”

“Ah.” Grimes nodded. “I’ll call Caridad. She can guard him. And me and Kirsten. And you can call the general.”

That wasn’t what Sarah had had in mind. On the other hand, as much as she hated to admit it, the Slayer would be able to protect Chuck against all demonic threats. Better than Sarah could. 

She sighed. “Do it.”

“Alright!”

She pressed her lips together for a moment. She hated being unable to protect Chuck adequately. But if her father had taught her anything, apart from conning people, then that life wasn’t fair.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, January 3rd, 2008**

“...and that is why we need access to the files covering Agent Bane’s mission,” Sarah finished, then watched the general. Despite the lateness of the hour - it was close to midnight - Beckman was still in her office. A possible hint that she was already aware of the current incident - or involved. Or she was handling another problem somewhere; the agency was facing global threats.

“I see.” The general looked at Bane. “Is this true, Agent Bane?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Bane nodded. “Although I am certain that the man they mentioned is dead. I personally verified it.”

Which Beckman would already know - Sarah had seen her skim a file on camera. The general nodded, then read the file for half a minute longer. “I’m transmitting the file to The Castle,” she announced. “Find out who is behind this attack.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sarah replied, but the screen was already fading out.

Perhaps the general was a little more tired than she had seemed. Or that was what she wanted them to think; Sarah didn’t know the woman as well as she had known the director.

The computer terminal on the side beeped, announcing a file transfer. Bane, sitting at the planning table, made no move towards the computer, so Sarah walked over. 

It suddenly struck her that Orion would have been able to get them the file if she had asked. Or any electronic files they needed or wanted. She pressed her lips together - she didn’t like even considering that. To betray the agency like that… And she didn’t want to owe the man anything. Unless Chuck was in danger and they were being stonewalled by Langley, of course.

On the other hand, if she had reason to suspect that the data she received was edited…

She shook her head and studied the files they had received. It looked like a standard mission for Bane. Seduce a mark, get his trust and access to his files, steal the data she as after, leave. And, in this case, tie up the loose ends, apparently. “Mathew Lindor?”

“Yes,” Bane replied.

She read on. A former drug runner who broke off and started his own operation, in New York of all places. Apparently without running afoul of the local mob. And diversified into running stolen goods, including stolen prototypes. Which brought him to the CIA’s attention. Which in turn resulted in Bane seducing and killing the man. “If someone faked his death, they went to great lengths,” Sarah commented. There was a police report, a medical examiner’s results, a death certificate… “Buried in Haiti.”

“His home country, as he called it,” Bane replied. “And he is dead. I shot him personally. Head and heart, just like a mob execution. And it was him - I spent enough time with him to tell. There was no double.”

Sarah had done honeytrap mission herself, but she hadn’t assassinated her mark. To sleep with someone, for weeks, and then kill him? Bane didn’t look as if she was affected by the deed. Was that a facade, or was she plotting how to kill Grimes, should she be ordered to?

“Hello!”

Speak of the devil… Sarah closed her eyes for a moment.

Grimes entered the room, a bottle of Mountain Dew in hand. He caught her glance and shrugged. “I got thirsty waiting for the general to sign off. Haven’t had this flavour since high school, I think.”

He wasn’t trying to subtly signal something with this comment, Sarah told herself.

“So… got the file?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Bane didn’t say anything; she merely watched him. Trouble in paradise?

“Cool. So, who is it?” Grimes put the bottle down on the table, fortunately not spilling any soda on the surface.

“Was,” Bane said. “He’s dead.”

“Probably,” Sarah corrected her. “Without an exhumation, we cannot prove that.” And they would need DNA from his relatives as well - which would mean they needed to verify those identities first.

Grimes nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.” With a sigh, he added: “I hate digging up bodies. I hope they didn’t bury it too deep or compressed the soil too much.”

Sarah blinked. Grimes seemed to speak from experience. Then she snorted. Of course he’d have experience - she had heard the Scoobies’ stories as well, after all.

“So, where is the grave?”

“In his home village in Haiti,” Bane answered.

And Grimes winced. “Haiti? Please don’t tell me that he was a Vodouist!”

Bane frowned. “He was, actually. Why?”

“Err… I’ve had some bad experiences with his kind,” Grimes replied.

Vodou. Haiti. Sarah fought the urge to groan. Were they dealing with a zombie?

“‘His kind’? What, a Vodou cult?” Bane asked,

“Err, yes.” Grimes nodded. “Rituals, sacrifices, the works?”

The agent frowned, then Sarah saw her eyes widen. “Did they burn people?”

“Ah, no, no,” Grimes replied, then glanced at her.

So, he wanted her to take the lead? Well, she could do that. Preferred to, actually. Unlike Grimes, she wasn’t sleeping with the spy. “Did they act as if they wanted to sacrifice you in a religious ritual?”

Grimes blinked, then shook his head. “No, they didn’t. No chanting, no candles, no runes painted on bodies or the ground.”

“They were on drugs,” Bane told them. “So much, their eyes were bloodshot. I doubt that they could have done anything more complex than trying to burn us.” She shivered slightly, or so Sarah thought - the other agent was quite skilled at hiding her emotions.

“They were functional enough to capture you,” she pointed out.

“Because there were so many. Some of them weren’t as high as others and coordinated them, I assume,” Bane retorted.

Sarah didn’t make a crack about assuming, though she imagined Chuck making one - not that he’d do it where Bane might overhear him. But she tilted her head a little in response.

Bane pressed her lips together and glared at her. “There was a dozen of them, and we had lost communications.”

“Did you identify the language they spoke?”

“No. I’ve never heard that language before,” Bane replied. “But Morgan did.”

Sarah should have expected that deflection. Bane would have noticed that Morgan could understand them.

“Err, it was similar to an African dialect I studied. But I’m no expert. You’d need Dawn for that.”

“Foreigners, then.” Sarah nodded. “Did you notice anything particular about them?” she asked Bane.

“You fought them as well,” Bane shot back. “They looked and were dressed like locals.”

“Like a local gang,” Morgan chimed in, unhelpfully.

“Although they didn’t use guns.” Bane looked at them. “And neither did you.”

“We assumed body armour,” Sarah replied.

“And if they were on drugs, then bullets wouldn’t have stopped them quickly enough,” Morgan added.

It didn’t sound very convincing. And Bane didn’t look very convinced, either. But the agent didn’t push the issue. She wouldn’t forget it, though, Sarah would bet on it.

“So… we’re going to Haiti?” Morgan asked.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, January 4th, 2008**

“We’re going to Haiti?” Chuck blinked in surprise.

“We need to check if Lindor rose from his grave,” Sarah, sitting on the edge of his bed, told him.

“Right.” Chuck nodded - gingerly. Concussions were serious. Could be serious, at least. 

“And his base of operations might be there, after his organisation in New York was dismantled following his apparent death,” she went on. “If he rose, of course. This could be someone else using his name.”

“Right.” But Chuck didn’t think so. And neither did Sarah, as far as he could tell. “Zombies.”

“Morgan seemed to have experience with them.”

“There was a zombie problem in Sunnydale, though that wasn’t Vodou, I think.” Chuck remembered something about a mask. “Anyway, yes, someone was making zombies a few years ago, in Los Angeles. Raised the recently dead to plunder their bank accounts.”

She frowned. “That sounds rather… mundane.”

Chuck slowly nodded. “Yes. It wasn’t particularly successful, either. But it was a mess.” Dead bodies appearing everywhere, the press speculating about identity theft and grave robbing - Caridad had been running herself ragged trying to find the Vodouist, and Morgan had almost ended up being arrested as a grave robber when exhuming potential victims. Speaking of… “So, what about Bane? Does she, uh, know?”

Sarah sighed. “It doesn’t appear so. But she could be playing dumb. She explained their appearance with drugs.”

“Ah. That happened a lot in Sunnydale. But I think there was also a spell involved, covering the town.” Which was a very creepy thought. “Anyway, is she coming with us?”

“Leaving her would be considered too dangerous since the enemy obviously knows where to find her. And the general didn’t want to reassign her, despite her compromised cover.”

“Ah.” Both of which Sarah would have preferred, of course. 

“Beckman probably thinks this is a good opportunity to gather information about the Council’s assets in other parts of the world,” Sarah went on.

“Oh.” That wasn’t a good thing, was it? “It would be hard to hide the truth from her if she’s coming with us, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And if anything happens to her, Beckman will suspect that we did it.”

Oh. That was even worse.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, January 4th, 2008**

“So, what’s the cover story for our trip to Haiti?” Chuck asked as he saw the maps on the planning table.

“A vacation,” Sarah replied.

“Oh.”

“Did you expect something stupid like being placed in quarantine to cover up our absences?” Casey asked, baring his teeth.

“No! Of course not!” He had, actually. Not that he would admit that. Not to Casey. And not to Sarah. Even though she smiled as if she knew already. “I’m just saying… if all of us take a vacation at the same time, it might look a little suspicious. Right?” And the Buy More would be short-staffed, though Chuck knew Casey didn’t care about that.

“That’s actually a good point,” Sarah agreed. Casey grunted. “We can close Wienerlicious for repairs or refits. That would explain my and Bane’s absence. And if we take a vacation, it would make sense that our boyfriends take a vacation as well.”

“That leaves Casey without a cover story,” Chuck pointed out.

“I don’t need a cover story.”

“But what if Big Mike won’t let you take a vacation? Perhaps you have to visit your sick mother on the other side of the country?” That would be a decent cover story, in Chuck’s opinion. Big Mike wouldn’t make a fuss about it. Well, not a big one.

Casey grinned and racked the slide of the pistol he had just cleaned. “I’d like to see him try to stop me.”

Chuck didn’t. He really didn’t want to see Big Mike dead. Casey might be joking, but if he wasn’t… “Uh…” Think, Chuck, think. “If Big Mike gets killed, there’ll be an investigation, and you’d be a suspect, endangering your cover.”

“Not if it looks like an accident.”

He had to be joking. Chuck looked at Sarah. She didn’t seem to be concerned. So, odds are, Casey wasn’t serious. Still… “I’ll file our vacations,” Chuck said. He cleared his throat. “So… has anyone been to Haiti already?”

“No,” Sarah said.

“I’ve been to Costa Gravas,” Casey said. “They call me ‘Angel de la Muerte’ there.”

Chuck laughed. That had to be a joke. But no one else was laughing. He coughed. “Uh… Yes. Sorry. I thought of a joke.”

The NSA agent glared at him but didn’t say anything.

“So… how do we get to Haiti? Private jet? Submarine insertion?”

“Economy class, nerd,” Casey spat. “We’re on vacation.”

“Yes,” Bane spoke up. “Just three couples taking a vacation in Haiti.”

“Three couples?” Casey frowned. And then frowned some more. 

“Caridad will be coming with us,” Chuck explained, flinching when the other agent growled. As if they would tackle a potential zombie plague without a Slayer.

“Why?” Bane asked. “This doesn’t concern her, does it?”

“Uh…” Chuck forced himself to smile. “She’s very protective of her friends.”

Casey grunted again, then added: “We’d have to kill her to stop her.”

Chuck, once again, hoped that the man was joking. 

*****


	18. The Vacation

**California, Los Angeles International Airport, January 5th, 2007**

James Bond never flew economy, Chuck was certain. And Bond wouldn’t have to stand in line at the check-in desk for the flight to Florida. Behind an overweight man noisily snacking on something with far too much garlic. “I think I know why the Scoobies use private jets,” Chuck muttered.

“I think they’d also use a scheduled flight if they wanted to be tourists,” Sarah whispered. “Or pass as tourists.”

He knew that. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Buffy has to fly economy or pay herself whenever it’s not an emergency,” Caridad said behind them. “Too many shopping trips to New York, or so Faith said.”

Chuck had his doubts about the veracity of Faith’s claim. On the other hand, Buffy liked her shoe shopping.

“It’s always nice if you can combine business and pleasure,” Bane, who had disguised herself with dyed hair, makeup and large sunglasses, said. Was she unaware of how that sounded for someone with her specialisation? 

“It won’t be much longer,” Morgan chimed in. Apparently, he hadn’t caught the implications. “Standing in line and waiting for your flight is part of the vacation experience, right? It makes you enjoy the holiday even more.”

“Once you finally arrive,” Chuck replied. Which wasn’t assured, of course. He blinked. What if someone used the opportunity to get rid of them? Plant a bomb on the plane? Private jets of the CIA were guarded, but liners? The TSA wouldn’t be able to keep a trained spy from planting an explosive or sabotaging the plane’s electronics. Or poisoning the food onboard. Or…

He felt Sarah’s squeeze his hand. “It’ll be fine,” Chuck.

He blinked. Had she read his mind? Or did she think he was afraid of flying? That wouldn’t look good for his career. What kind of spy had a fear of flying? “It’s alright,” he said. “As long as our cover holds.”

“Then better start acting more like a dumb tourist, Bartowski,” Casey butted in. “Instead of a dumb idiot.”

“‘Idiot’ already implies being dumb,” Chuck retorted.

“Some idiots, you have to add a qualifier,” Casey shot back.

“Yeah, I know one,” Caridad cut in.

Fortunately, the line moved and interrupted the argument before it could start. Chuck hoped that the two would get seats far from each other. 

He sighed and squeezed Sarah’s hand. This wasn’t exactly an auspicious start for his first mission to a foreign country.

*****

**Florida, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, January 5th, 2008**

Four hours layover until the flight to Port-au-Prince. Long enough to be a pain, not long enough to actually go and rent a room. Or something. Chuck leaned back on the bench and closed his eyes. It was still early in the morning in Florida, and while he had slept on the flight, he was still tired. “Vacations are overrated,” he said. At least the flight hadn’t had any trouble.

“Technically, it’s not a vacation,” Sarah replied as she sat down next to him. “We’re going to be working.”

“But we’re travelling as if we were normal tourists,” he said. “So, if this were a normal vacation, it would be overrated.”

“Don’t let Big Mike hear that. He would think we were not properly grateful that he allowed us to take a vacation together,” Morgan said. 

Chuck glanced at him. His friend was rubbing his neck. “That inflatable pillow didn’t work.”

“Oh, let me,” Bane said, standing up and walking behind him. “Yes, you’re quite tensed,” she said as she started to massage Morgan’s neck.

“Oh… thank you!” Morgan sighed with apparent relief.

“You can return the favour,” she told him.

“I will!”

If Chuck didn’t know that Bane was a trained spy specialising in seducing marks, he’d assume they were a normal couple. A normal couple in love. He pressed his lips together. It wasn’t his business. Well, technically, it was Chuck’s fault, but Morgan knew that Bane was a spy. And that she was a honeypot. He could trust his friend, couldn’t he?

“Do you need a massage as well?” Sarah interrupted his thoughts.

She probably was just reacting to Bane giving Morgan a massage. But Chuck did feel a little tensed. “I wouldn’t turn one down,” he said. “And I would return the favour.”

Well, at least things were starting to look up. He suddenly laughed.

“Chuck?” 

“Oh, nothing. I just realised how stupid it is to complain about the hardships of flying economy when we’re trying to track down and deal with a possible Vodou-cult.” And zombies. And, perhaps, more demon mercenaries. Some vacation.

Of course, Caridad was looking forward to fighting zombies and Vodouists. Casey probably as well.

If only they could stand each other again. Chuck wasn’t an officer, or a natural leader or whatever, but having two members out of six angry at each other wasn’t a good thing on a mission, no matter how professional they might claim to be.

Of course, having another member of questionable loyalty with them wasn’t helping, either.

Spy missions in foreign countries were overrated.

*****

**Haiti, Aéroport International Toussaint Louverture, January 5th, 2008**

Fort Lauderdale had been warm and humid, but it had nothing on Haiti. As soon as they stepped out of the airport, Chuck started to sweat. Not exactly the picture of a suave, smart spy. On the other hand, it fit his cover story. That was a small consolation, though.

But they piled into a climatised shuttle bus soon enough, and Chuck breathed a sigh of relief. “Don’t get used to it,” Casey snarled. “The yacht won’t have air conditioning.”

“But we’ll be out on the sea,” Sarah said. “The fresh breezes there will help.”

Had everyone realised how uncomfortable he had been? Chuck shrugged. “I’ll be fine,” he lied.

“A week of sailing in the Caribbean!” Morgan exclaimed. His friend was playing the tourist role very well, Chuck had to admit. If Morgan was playing a role at all - he hadn’t exactly taken many vacations, and never in the Caribbean, as far as Chuck knew. And given how he acted with Bane...

Chuck really had to talk to Morgan about Bane’s work. Preferably before they were on the yacht and couldn’t really talk without Bane - or the others - overhearing. Not that Caridad was likely to miss it anyway - the Slayer wouldn’t leave Morgan or anyone else out of her sight, or at least her hearing range.

Yes, he’d talk to Morgan today. Once they had settled in at the hotel. Or, perhaps, after dinner.

He closed his eyes in frustration. He was procrastinating again.

*****

**Haiti, Port-au-Prince, La Villa Creole, January 5th, 2008**

For the best hotel in Port-au-Prince - at least according to a quick web search - the menu in the restaurant wasn’t very large. Of course it didn’t really matter since they were only staying one day, but still… At least the food served was good, Chuck found.

And not too expensive, which was a boon given Caridad’s appetite - the Slayer was ravaging the buffet. If Chuck ever had to find Slayers in hiding, he’d simply open an all-you-can-eat buffet and waited. He snorted at the thought, then blinked. What if demons did exactly that and poisoned the food? Perhaps he should mention this to the Council.

“So, what are we doing after dinner?” Morgan asked. “I heard there’s this really hopping club in the city.”

“We should discuss our yachting trip. Routes, supplies, etc.,” Sarah replied.

“I thought that was already… Ah, right, yes. We need to discuss that. Routes and supplies, yes,” Morgan said.

Chuck frowned. Not at Morgan’s near-blunder. No, if they had a briefing after dinner, or a planning session, Chuck wouldn’t be able to talk to Morgan in private.

Damn.

At least, dessert was great. And the hotel staff hadn’t tried to throw out Caridad. Not yet, in any case - if they stayed longer, there would probably be issues with her appetite.

*****

Sarah set up the laptop as soon as they were back in her and Chuck’s room. They’d need it for the briefing. They’d had one in The Castle, but there was always something that came up afterwards. Sometimes something essential.

And when it concerned demons, Sarah wasn’t about to take any risk that could be avoided. She was confident in her ability to adapt and overcome, to quote Casey, if a mission went pear-shaped, but zombies? Vodouists?

If only they could talk freely. But that was all Bane’s fault. Chuck was nervous as well, more nervous than Sarah had expected. This might be his first mission in a foreign country, but he had been on dangerous missions before. She checked the clock on the laptop. Casey and the others wouldn’t arrive for some time. Bane might even have a quickie with Grimes. Sarah shook her head as she turned to Chuck. “It’ll be alright,” she said.

“What?” He blinked. “Uh, sorry, I was lost in thoughts.”

“I noticed,” she said with a smile.

It didn’t help to calm him down, though. “Uh, yeah, of course you noticed. Because you’ve been trained to notice, I mean…” he babbled.

“Chuck.”

“Yes?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing?”

She frowned at that. He should know better than to try to lie to her like that. And he should be a little better at lying, anyway.

He caved. “Sorry… I wanted to talk to Morgan. About Bane, you know?”

She didn’t. “About Bane?” she prompted him, turning her seat to face him and crossing her legs. Which drew his attention - her skirt was shorter than her uniform in Wienerlicious.

“Uh… yes. I mean… I think he’s a little too close to her, you know?”

That she knew, indeed. She nodded. “Yes.”

“So, I wondered if, well, I could talk to him and remind him that she’s a spy who’s supposed to be spying on us, not like you and Casey,” Chuck went on, gesturing with his hands.

“Technically, we’re supposed to spy on you as well,” she reminded him.

“Yes, but you and Casey don’t, do you?” Chuck asked. Rhetorically. “But Bane…” He winced. “I don’t want her to break Morgan’s heart.”

Sarah was more concerned with Bane turning Grimes. Or using him as a source of information. Men did stupid things when they were in love, and Grimes looked like he was falling in love. But Chuck’s intervention would help with that, too. So she nodded. “Yes. And you want to talk to him in private.”

“Yes. And I don’t think we’ll have a lot of privacy on the yacht. I mean, there are separate cabins, but…”

They weren’t exactly sound-proof. “Yes. I’ll see what I can arrange after the briefing.”

“Thank you.” His relieved smile made her feel both warm and slightly guilty.

*****

“...and so we will sail to Petit-Troup-de-Nippes. Lindor’s home village, a fishing village, is to the west of it, but approaching it from the sea would run the risk of being noticed if there are people who were involved in the attack on Agent Bane,” Sarah said. 

“They will pay attention to Americans on a yacht either way,” Casey added, “and we won’t be able to move around the village unobserved.”

“We could stage a distraction,” Bane said. “Draw the attention of any observer.”

Of course Bane would think of that. It was a decent plan despite the source - Sarah had played a distraction herself - but the real reason they wanted to approach the village overland was so they could send in Caridad as a scout ahead of them, without giving the game away to Bane or the opposition. So Sarah replied: “The risk of being discovered is too great. We would need to sneak off the yacht at night for the exhumation, and afterwards, depending on the results, we might need to stay longer, which would require a good excuse.”

“Something on the yacht could break,” Bane proposed.

“That would result in a replacement yacht being sent, and probably more attention,” Sarah retorted.

“And our budget won’t thank us for it,” Chuck added. “I think.”

Sarah smiled at the joke. “Our best bet is to make a day trip in Petit-Troup-de-Nippes. We can spend a day at sea to analyse the results, then make landfall near the target village later, in case further operations are needed.” Meaning, if they had to kill a few people. Or demons.

Caridad snorted. The Slayer wasn’t planning on leaving any demons she encountered alive, Sarah knew. Or whole, in the case of zombies which couldn’t be called alive, as far as Sarah knew.

“Do you disagree?” Bane asked.

“No.” Caridad’s own smile was toothy and about as honest as Bane’s, in Sarah’s opinion.

“Well, I think it’s a good plan,” Grimes said. “In and out, without anyone the wiser, right?” His smile faltered a little when the Slayer and the agent kept staring at each other. Well, he was sleeping with Bane, so he had brought that down upon himself, as far as Sarah was concerned.

*****

“...and we will board the yacht tomorrow at eight.”

A normal yacht, not one that was sporting nifty spy equipment, Chuck knew. Still, they would have scuba gear, harpoons, and sophisticated cameras. And Chuck’s - limited, but recent . sailing experience would come in handy; neither Morgan and Caridad nor Bane had any sailing experience, and Casey’s was probably limited to charging a beach.

It felt good to contribute without relying on the Intersect. 

“Any questions? No? Good. This briefing’s over, then. Agent Bane, a word.”

And there vanished Chuck’s good mood. Sarah was holding back Bane, so it was now or never. “Uh, I’ll go and check if the shop has a computer magazine,” he said, looking at Morgan and all but wiggling his eyebrows.

His friend didn’t pick up his intentions, though. “Good idea! Can you get me the latest issue as well? Ow!”

“Sorry,” Caridad said while Morgan rubbed his foot. “Didn’t see you here.”

“Really? Err…” Ah, the coin had just dropped. “Perhaps I’ll check myself. A few newspapers would help our cover, right?”

Sometimes, having a Slayer eavesdrop on you was convenient.

“So, what was so important that you had Caridad crush my foot?” Morgan asked as soon as they were in the hallway.

“She didn’t,” Chuck replied. “Anyway, I wanted to talk to you. In private.”

“And you asked Caridad for help? Isn’t that kind of...” Morgan shrugged, probably remembering that they were still within the range of the Slayer’s hearing.

“I wanted to talk to you about Bane,” Chuck said as they descended the stairs.

“Kirsten? I told you, I have it under control,” Morgan said. Chuck was reminded of a smoker claiming that they could quit anytime they wanted.

“It’s not that,” he lied. “Do you know about the last spy mission we did? When Caridad checked the hotel beforehand?”

“Err… shouldn’t I?”

So he did, and Chuck wouldn’t be revealing classified information. Good. “It was a sting. We set up a conman with a computer virus,” he told Morgan. “Bane played my personal assistant. Who let the conman seduce her so he wouldn’t get suspicious.” There. He had said it.

“Ah, right.”

That was a rather underwhelming reaction. Chuck had expected something more. He glanced at his friend as they entered the lobby. Morgan was looking straight ahead. “So, uh, I just wanted to let you know.”

“I know she’s a spy, Chuck. That’s what spies do. James Bond does it all the time.”

James Bond was a fictional spy. And didn’t have a steady relationship. Not counting the Lazenby movie. But Morgan didn’t want to talk about it, Chuck knew the signs. Like in fifth grade. He sighed. “So… if you want to talk about it… well, we won’t be able to, on the yacht. But afterwards. I’ll be here.”

“It’s fine, Chuck, really.” Morgan pointed ahead and said, a little too loudly: “Look, there are the newspapers!”

That could’ve gone better.

*****

**Haiti, Port-au-Prince, Harbour, January 6th, 2008**

Sarah could tell him how it wasn’t much of an expense compared to other missions all she wanted, Chuck still was impressed by the yacht the CIA had rented for the group. Sleek, large enough to fit three couples comfortably and still easy to handle for a beginning sailor such as himself.

Of course, a yacht fit for three couples wasn’t exactly ideal for two couples and a definitely-not-couple.

“I’ll sleep on the deck. Someone has to stand watch anyway.” Casey said after a look belowdecks.

“This isn’t a Navy ship, Mr Marine.” Caridad snorted. “I’ll stand watch. You can sleep safe and sound in your bunk there. I’m the better guard anyway.”

Chuck rolled his eyes. It was true - Slayer senses were far beyond a normal human - but to Bane, it had to sound like bragging. Or, worse, valuable intel.

“Everyone needs to sleep,” Morgan cut in. “So how about a rotation?”

“We do need a watch on deck if we’re sailing,” Chuck pointed out. Which was why most such trips saw the yacht at anchor overnight in a bay or port - few tourists wanted to stand watch at night.

“We won’t be sailing at night,” Sarah said. “That would be too conspicuous.”

Right. Chuck should have considered that. An experienced spy would have. He cleared his throat. “In any case, a watch is still a good idea.”

“Yes,” Morgan agreed. “There could be pirates!”

“Pirates?” Caridad blinked.

“More like robbers going after rich tourists who just happen to be on a boat instead of in a car, but technically, that makes them pirates,” Chuck explained.

“Err, yes.” Morgan nodded. Chuck saw him mouth something towards Caridad. Probably ‘zombie pirates’ or ‘pirate ghosts’. There hadn’t been any reports about ghost ships in the area according to Phil, but that didn’t rule them out. And where there were zombies, zombie pirates were a distinct possibility.

“Let them come!” Caridad announced, smacking the palm of her left hand with her fist.

Casey scoffed, which triggered another exchange of glares.

They were off to a good start, indeed.

*****

**Caribbean Sea, West of Port-au-Prince, January 6th, 2008**

An hour after leaving port, Chuck was in a better mood. The weather was perfect - sunny with a light breeze just strong enough to let them sail at a nice pace and turn what might have been a humid heat into comfortable weather. And everyone was maintaining their cover. Which meant they were doing what tourists did - relaxing. Or sunning themselves in bikinis on the foredeck, in the case of the women on board. Which wasn’t as great as it appeared at first sight. 

He sighed as he adjusted the course of the yacht a little to compensate for the wind’s drift. He didn’t mind the view, so to speak, but he couldn’t help feeling as if he were watching a competition or pageant, not three girls enjoying a vacation.

“It’s a great day, isn’t it? Here, have a drink!” Morgan had returned from belowdecks and handed him a coke.

“Thank you.”

“This is great,” Chuck’s friend went on. “Like a dream vacation.”

Chuck knew what kind of dream Morgan meant - his friend was staring at Bane. Who looked more like a pinup girl or Playboy model posing for a shoot than a tourist on vacation. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” he replied. “We’ll arrive at Petit-Troup-de-Nippes in the afternoon.” At which point the mission would start for real.

“Don’t get distracted,” Casey growled from their left. Port, Chuck reminded himself. The agent was fishing but hadn’t caught any fish yet. “We’re on a mission, not on a pleasure cruise.”

“Kirsten would say it can be both,” Morgan replied.

Casey scoffed at that. As did Caridad, Chuck noticed - another reminder of how awkward Slayer hearing could be.

*****

**Haiti, Petit-Troup-de-Nippes, January 6th, 2008**

“Let’s check the market!” Sarah said - a little too loudly - as she grabbed Chuck’s arm. They were tourists, after all. Harmless tourists, not trained spies on a mission.

“Yes!” Bane agreed. “And let’s find a nice restaurant for dinner.”

Sarah’s smile slipped a little. If not for the spy, this could feel like a real vacation. Chuck and her, exploring the town. Granted, she was wearing a few throwing spikes in a thigh holster under her short summer dress, and she carried a gun in her purse, but she’d do that on a vacation as well - tourists were targets for criminals, after all.

But they were on a mission, which meant they had to stick together. Well, with the exception of Casey, who had stayed on the yacht, and Caridad, who was ‘roaming’, as the Slayer had told them. Probably trying to sniff out demons - literally, in this case.

Sarah chuckled at the thought.

“Hm?” Chuck was looking at her.

“Just a funny thought I had,” she told him. “Let’s enjoy the evening.” And, at least she hoped so, the night before Caridad returned to the yacht.

“Alright,” he said, smiling at her. “Window shopping, then?”

“Yes.” Just like a couple on vacation. Or on their honeymoon. She grabbed his arm, and they strolled down the road. 

It was a beautiful day. Just enough of a breeze to keep the temperature from being too hot, but no clouds, not even a hint of rain. And while there were a lot of souvenir shops, there were also enough shops that looked genuine to make window shopping enjoyable instead of an exercise in maintaining cover.

“Oh, look, a stuffed shark! Wouldn’t that be a nice gift for Big Mike? A counterpart to his Marlin!”

If only Grimes would stop falling for every tourist trap in the town! Couldn’t Bane monopolise his attention?

“I don’t know, Morgan. Doesn’t he usually prefer trophies he caught himself?”

“That’s what he claims.”

“That still means he won’t like a shark that everyone will know he didn’t catch,” Chuck pointed out. “And I don’t think it’ll fit into our luggage.”

“We can have it shipped home, though,” Bane said.

“Right!” Grimes perked up. “So… how much is it?”

A glance at the vendor’s grin told Sarah that Grimes would pay far too much for the fish. Well, he had brought it upon himself.

And, she discovered soon afterwards, having to drag a shark around that was almost his own size certainly made it harder for Grimes to engage Chuck in conversation. 

She used the opportunity. “So, Chuck, what kind of dinner do you fancy?”

But Chuck was blinking at a stand with several carved figurines.

*****

Chuck drew a deep breath when his vision returned to normal. This was bad. Really bad. “Guys, I flashed,” he whispered, glancing around. There were too many people nearby to talk about this.

Sarah took charge. “Let’s go find a place to eat,” she said. “Sailing all day is hungry work.”

“Chuck and I did most of the sailing,” Morgan cut in. “Didn’t you mostly sunbathe?” Sarah shot Chuck’s friend a glare that had him wince even as Bane chuckled. “Dinner it is!” Morgan added hastily.

They found a nice little restaurant in a side alley. Far enough from the most obvious tourist traps so they wouldn’t be serving tourist food, but not so far that the group would stick out too much. And it had authentic Haitian cuisine, as far as Chuck could tell. Unless that was ‘authentic Haitian cuisine for tourists’.

But he had intel to share. “Guys,” he whispered, leaning forward as soon as the waitress had left to fetch their drinks, “the carved figurines? Used by a syndicate to smuggle drugs to New York.”

“A syndicate?” Morgan asked. “Like a cartel?”

“Locals, I think,” Bane said. “Probably Mathew’s old gang. I don’t think foreigners would get away with moving drugs on someone else’s turf.”

Sarah nodded. “We’ll have to assume that they’ll have a significant presence in the town. Including contacts among the local police and authorities.”

That sounded bad. Even worse than Chuck had thought.

“And some loyal followers in the Vodou cult,” Morgan added.

Could things go even worse? Chuck winced at his own thought. Tempting Murphy was a really bad idea. “We need to inform Caridad,” he said. “She isn’t aware of this. Casey as well.” 

“I’ll inform her,” Morgan said, pulling out his phone and starting to text. Sarah merely nodded and did likewise.

“The drug smugglers might have made a deal to avenge Mathew’s death to get cooperation and support from his family,” Bane said. “Wouldn’t be the first time people did such a thing.”

Chuck nodded, even though he suspected there was more to this. “We still need to check the grave,” he said. “And Caridad might find out more intel.”

“She’s still roaming,” Morgan reported. “She hasn’t encountered any trouble so far.”

That meant no zombies or demons. No drug smugglers, either. Probably - Caridad’s definition of ‘no trouble’ was, sometimes at least, a little generous. At least in Chuck’s experience. But as long as Morgan didn’t seem to be concerned…

The waitress returned with their drinks, and everyone played tourist again. That was the safest course of action until they knew more about the enemy.

But the Haitian food, genuine or not, was excellent.

*****

They returned to the yacht after dinner. Perhaps a little early for tourists, but they had the excuse of being tired. Morgan certainly was tired from lugging around a stuffed shark. Chuck could only imagine Big Mike’s reaction.

Casey had cooked the single fish he had caught, not that it had improved his disposition, at least in Chuck’s opinion. “So, things just got a little more interesting,” the agent said in lieu of a greeting.

“Yes,” Sarah replied. “Though we suspected such a setup,” she added, with a glance at Bane. “We don’t know yet where the organisation is based; here or in Lindor’s home village.”

And whether or not zombies - and Vodouists - were involved, Chuck thought.

“Well, we’ve got a long day ahead of us,” Sarah said. “We best get some rest now.”

She meant before Caridad returned, Chuck knew.

“Good idea,” Bane agreed. 

For a moment, the two spies glanced at each other, then Sarah headed belowdecks. “Coming, Chuck?”

He did, of course.

*****

“...so, I didn’t find anything unusual or interesting,” Caridad said between eating a sandwich large enough to feed Big Mike for a day. “Town looks clean. Suspiciously clean, even.”

No supernatural threats, then. Which was, by itself, a little suspicious. Or more than a little. The Vodouists might be keeping a tighter lid on their area than expected. Although if they controlled the town as well, then Caridad should have discovered signs of that. Magic, especially warding magic, usually used some visible signs. Symbols, talismans, runes.

“No sign of any criminal activities?” Bane asked.

“None related to drug smuggling,” Caridad replied. “I didn’t bother with thieves and the like.” She took a bottle of soda and drank half of it in a few swallows, then burped loudly. Phil would have been appalled at the sight, Chuck thought, slightly amused.

“Do we stick with the plan, then?” Morgan asked. “Day trip tomorrow, Caridad goes ahead scouting the village while we play tourists?”

“Yes,” the Slayer said at once.

“I’ll provide backup,” Casey said. “I’ve dealt with cartels before.”

“I can handle it,” Caridad retorted at once. “You’d slow me down.”

“Rushing in will endanger the mission,” the agent growled.

“It’s just a scouting mission; I could do it in my sleep.”

“After the attack in Los Angeles was foiled, they might expect such an intrusion and could be prepared,” Casey pointed out.

Caridad scoffed. “They’re not prepared for me, or they would have hired more people!”

“Overconfidence is a fatal weakness,” Casey countered.

“Yes.” Caridad bared her teeth.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Chuck raised his hands. “Time-out. We’re a team, aren’t we? So, we should be working together.” Caridad glared at him, but he managed not to flinch. “Uh… and you two are our best scouts for this. So…” The glare intensified, and he trailed off. They knew what he wanted, anyway.

“Yes,” Morgan said, nodding. “I can’t provide much backup here, so Casey would be the better choice. Seeing as he’s done this before. With drug smugglers, I mean.”

“We’re on a mission,” Sarah added. Bane nodded as well.

Caridad looked from one to the other, then stuffed the rest of the sandwich into her mouth, glaring at the wall.

Chuck took that as agreement. A very grudging agreement, but agreement nonetheless. With Slayers, you had to take what you could get.

*****

**Haiti, West of Petit-Troup-de-Nippes, January 6th, 2008**

“I feel a little guilty,” Chuck said as they stopped their rental car at a nice spot on the coast; a bluff above a cosy-looking small cove that would be ideal for swimming - or to anchor a yacht.

“Hm?” Sarah turned her head to look at him, lowering her binoculars.

“Caridad and Casey are scouting, and we’re playing tourists,” he explained.

“We’re doing our part,” she replied. “And we’re doing reconnaissance,” she added, “in case we need to sail here. Which is likely since I doubt Caridad can exhume Lindor’s body by herself.”

“Good point,” Chuck admitted. “Certainly not in the middle of the day - but don’t tell her that or she might try it.”

That made her laugh. “She would, wouldn’t she?”

“Unless she thought it was a trick to make her do all the work.”

“Did you do that before?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Well… Morgan did,” he admitted. “But I helped. A little.”

“Ah.” She laughed again. “You’ll have to tell me the whole story, once we’re done here.”

She probably meant the entire mission. Chuck hoped so, at least - there was no way he’d tell that story where Caridad might overhear him. He changed the subject. “I hope no one will break into the yacht.”

“We took all our spy gear with us,” Sarah replied. “They won’t find anything.”

He knew that. “But we would have to react like typical tourists, wouldn’t we?”

“Yes. Complain to the police, and go on. We won’t actually have to deal with the paperwork with the rental agency, though. It’s just an act, after all.”

“Ah.” ‘Just an act’. He knew the feeling. Sometimes he felt as if his whole work as an intelligence asset was just an act. He wasn’t a trained spy; he was just a walking Intersect interface. With an expiration date on his usefulness - although Dad could probably change that. If they pulled off their deception. But the CIA would notice, wouldn’t they? On the other hand, by that time, they’d be working for the Council. If everything went according to plan. Which would…

Sarah’s sudden curse interrupted his thoughts. “Casey sent a message. There’s trouble.”

“What happened?” Chuck asked.

But Sarah was already pulling out the radios. Of course - text communication wouldn’t work well in a battle; Call of Duty had proved that already.

As Sarah as setting up the radio, Bane was grabbing weapons from the hollow bottom of the suitcase in the car and assembling them. And Morgan did the same with the Watcher gear, if not as smoothly.

What could Chuck do if there wasn’t anything to flash on? He clenched his teeth and went to help Morgan with the crossbows. They were modern ones, far easier to disassemble and hide in luggage than the classics Giles and others preferred.

“Someone spotted Caridad, Casey said. It seems that the entire village is chasing her,” Sarah informed them.

“The entire village?” Chuck blinked. And why hadn’t she torn through them already? “Oh no!”

“These Vodouists use living zombies,” Morgan said, echoing Chuck’s thoughts. “Mind-controlled minions.”

“What?” Bane stared at them, holding a carbine in her hands. M4, Chuck noted.

“They are controlled through a combination of substances and conditioning,” he explained, “and triggered by orders. Like a village of sleeper agents.”

That she understood - he saw her frown. “They won’t be trained combatants, though. It shouldn’t be too hard to deal with them.”

But apparently, she didn’t understand that you couldn’t just kill mind-controlled minions. Well, you could, but it was wrong. Very wrong - Chuck didn’t really remember the bezoar incident, but he had been told about it. If Buffy had shown less restraint… “We can’t kill them,” he said, staring at Bane. “We need to take out the Vodouist controlling them. And his men.”

“We’re here to find out who’s behind the attack in Lindor’s name,” Bane replied.

“Which this situation is part of,” Chuck told her, climbing into the car. “Now let’s go.”

“Yes,” Morgan agreed - if a little belatedly - as he joined them.

Sarah smiled at Chuck before she gunned the engine and started racing towards the village as if this were Paris-Dakar.

*****

So much for Bane’s morals, Sarah thought as she drove down the unpaved road - more like a dirt track, really. You didn’t propose to kill mind-controlled civilians; not to Chuck and Grimes, at least.

Even though they might have to, at one point, she added as she gritted her teeth. Some of the villagers might have weapons and knew how to use them. And some might be mind-controlled drug smugglers or mercenaries. Why pay your hired help if you could simply turn them into zombies? She shuddered at the thought.

Though the thought that some people in the agency would want to use the same method to create sleeper agents of their own was even more chilling. If the CIA started dabbling in magic… Perhaps they would have to join the Council before officially quitting the agency.

But this wasn’t the time to dwell on such thoughts. They had a Slayer and an NSA agent to rescue. She accelerated some more and slid around the next turn. At her current speed, it was about ten minutes to the village.

“They’re using villagers to herd her while setting up snipers; engaged and neutralised two so far,” Casey reported over the radio. “But they’ve made my position.”

“Why doesn’t she just rush out of the village?” Chuck asked. “She could easily go through a dozen fishers.”

“She’s probably trying to get to the Vodouist,” Grimes replied.

That would fit the Slayer, in Sarah’s mentality. Too stubborn and focused on her target for her own good.

“Caridad?” Chuck tried to raise her.

“Busy!” they heard the Slayer’s reply. “They have more of those mercenaries here!”

Demons, then. Of course.

“They’ve covered the escape routes,” Casey said. They could hear automatic fire over the radio. “There are far too many for mere guards. This is an ambush. A trap.” A curse followed, then more shots. “I’m going to…”

The transmission broke off.

“Casey? Casey?” Chuck asked, almost yelling at the radio. “Casey?”

“Casey?” That was Caridad on the radio.

Sarah pressed her lips together. His radio could have been hit. Or lost. That the transmission had been cut off even pointed towards that.

But any hit that could take out a radio could take out a man as well.

“I’m going after him!” Caridad announced. Then she cursed in Spanish. “They have him!”

“We’re coming,” Chuck told her. “We’re almost there.”

“Don’t do anything rash,” Grimes added.

Sarah hoped that the Slayer would listen. But she feared the girl wouldn’t.

*****

This was bad. Very, very bad. Casey captured. Caridad about to go ballistic. And they were still a few minutes out. Chuck shook his head. His friends were in mortal danger, and he couldn’t do anything to help them. He hadn’t flashed on anything. Couldn’t provide any information. And he wasn’t even as good a shot with a crossbow as Morgan was.

He was the weakest link. And he loathed it.

“We’re almost there,” Sarah said.

“We’re almost there,” Chuck told Caridad. At least he could use the radio, freeing the others for more important tasks.

“They dragged him to the centre of the village,” she replied.

Damn. “We’re almost there,” he repeated himself. “Hold out.”

“I’m not the one in trouble,” she retorted.

But she would jump headfirst into trouble for her friends, Chuck knew. And Casey, for all her issues with him, was her friend. Their friend. He cleared his throat. “Uh…”

Bane’s scream interrupted him. “Ambush!”

A moment later, there was an explosion, and the car flipped.

And everything went black.

*****

Chuck blinked, shaking his head, as he woke up. The first thing he saw was a man in a white suit. He flashed. Paul Obas. Drug Runner turned gang leader. Working with the cartels to supply New York. Suspected of multiple murders. Brutal murders. 

Obas yelled: “We have your allies! If you want to save them, surrender, Slayer!”

What? Chuck tried to move and realised that someone was holding his arms. Two someones. Big, burly men. Or demons - his arms felt as if they were locked in vices. And there was Casey, on the ground, at the man’s feet. He looked much worse than Chuck felt. Someone had roughed the agent up.

“Did you hear me, Slayer? Surrender, or we’ll kill your friends - slowly!” Obas grinned, showing gold-plated teeth.

Ah. Chuck blinked again. No! He turned his head. Morgan and Bane were held by thugs as well. At least Bane’s disguise seemed to have fooled the thugs. For now. And Sarah… No!

Sarah was getting dragged towards Obas.

“Perhaps the woman can serve to show the Slayer that we’re serious.”

No! No! They were going to torture Sarah to get Caridad. In front of Chuck. No! He struggled, but to no avail - the men holding him laughed. He kicked out, but didn’t have the right leverage, and only caused more laughter. “Sarah! Let her go!” he yelled.

“Did you hear him, Slayer? Last chance!”

No! No! Chuck started to pant when he realised that he would have to watch her getting tortured. Helpless. Useless. Useless. He shook his head, tears gathering in his eyes. “Let her go!”

More laughter.

Sarah was forced on her knees and Obas crouched in front of her, flashing a stiletto.

And, suddenly, Chuck knew Kung Fu. And Muay Thai. And how to escape. And...

*****


	19. The Break-Through

**Haiti, West of Petit-Troup-de-Nippes, January 6th, 2008**

Everything was suddenly so obvious. He was being held by two people. They were gripping his arms, but his legs were free. He knew their height - knew where their heads were. Knew how to move.

Chuck whipped his legs up, jackknifing while being held upright. His feet hit their faces, teeth shattering on the steel-capped boots he wore. He reversed direction, pushing off and flipping, landing on his feet as they released his arms in their shock. He dropped low and swept both of them off their feet with his leg.

He kept turning, rising into a roundhouse kick to the face of one of the men holding Morgan, then slipped behind the reeling brute, drawing the pistol stuck in their waistband at the same time.

One of the guards with rifles was taking aim at Chuck but hesitated due to the human shield he had. Chuck shot him in the head, then shot his human shield, who was still standing despite the kick, then shot the other man who had just released Morgan.

Double-tap to the head. Down. Morgan dived to the ground, scrambling for the rifle the guard had dropped. Chuck crouched as well and shot at Obas, putting three rounds into the man’s chest. Down.

Or not. Obas reeled but kept standing. He wasn’t wearing a vest, though. Chuck quickly checked his gun - a .45 - then fired again. Obas refused to go down. And one of the men Chuck had shot was getting up. 

But Sarah had used the distraction and gotten away from her own captors. As Chuck jumped behind a pillar nearby, he saw her slit the throat of one of the guards, then crush the throat of the other.

Obas turned to face her, though. And Chuck had only two rounds left in his pistol.

Before he could plot the best course of action to get another weapon, the sewer lid in the centre of the square shot in the air, followed by a screaming figure - Caridad!

The Slayer flipped in the air, then landed in a crouch, beheading a guard on the way with her kukri. The dead man was still in the process of dropping to the ground while she shot off like a rocket towards Obas. The man whirled, brandishing his knife at the Slayer, which got him stabbed in the back by Sarah, right before Caridad cut his head off.

There was less blood than expected, Chuck noted before he dashed forward, dived into a roll and came up holding a discarded submachine gun. Two bursts later, Casey was free. This gun was working properly, at least.

Sarah was running towards him. Good. Joining forces would be more effective. And Morgan had managed to free Bane while Casey had recovered a rifle despite his injuries. Chuck put a few more rounds into a staggering guard before Caridad beheaded them, then looked for more threats. There weren’t any - Bane had just dispatched the last of the men on her side, assisted by Morgan. And Casey had shot a man on a motorbike trying to drive away. But… there! More people moving towards them, in a ragged line, even.

Easy targets.

“Chuck! No!” Sarah screamed.

He blinked. “What?”

“They’re mind-controlled!”

Oh. OH! He gasped. He had almost gunned down the zombies the villagers had been turned into. The living zombies. “Oh my gosh!” He shook his head. “I…”

Sarah pulled him into cover behind a pickup in the corner. “What happened, Chuck? Did the Intersect activate?”

The Intersect. Yes. “It must have…” He shook his head again, staring at the gun in his hand. How had he… “It’s gone again.” The tougher guards must have been demons, he realised.

“They’ll keep obeying the last order!” Caridad yelled. “They won’t stop until we’re gone.”

“How does he control them?” Bane yelled.

Chuck almost replied with ‘Magic!’. “Then we need to leave!” he yelled, instead.

“There are still guards outside the village,” Casey interjected. 

“We can shoot them on the way out!” Caridad replied. “We can’t shoot the villagers!”

“Let’s take the car,” Sarah yelled, climbing onto the driver’s seat. 

Chuck hurriedly followed her, still grasping the submachine gun. Bane and Morgan climbed onto the back with Casey.

“Caridad!” Sarah yelled, starting the engine.

The Slayer was knocking down zombies. She was almost surrounded.

“Caridad!” Morgan screamed. There were more zombies coming - they were converging on the square from all sides.

She pushed a tall man back with a kick to the chest, then whirled, jumped over two grasping zombies and sprinted towards them, going full-tilt.

Sarah was already accelerating, but the Slayer caught up, grabbed the fender with one hand and pulled herself up and onto the truck bed in one smooth motion.

“Hit it!”

Sarah accelerated, drifting around the next corner, barely missing a family of zombies trying to bar the way, and kept going towards the edge of the village.

*****

Sarah hissed through her teeth when she almost ran over a few civilians - including children - when she took that corner. To mind-control people and use them as cannon fodder like that… 

“Was Obas the man controlling them?” Chuck yelled to the truck bed. He had acted weird as well - the Intersect, no doubt. But she couldn’t wonder about that. Not now.

“I don’t know,” Caridad yelled back. “Don’t think so, though. He didn’t feel like the big bad.”

Damn. That meant there was still a Vodouist controlling the villagers. And the armed guards or drug runners.

“‘Feel like the big bad’?” Bane asked.

Sarah tuned Grimes’ explanations - or attempts to cover up Caridad’s slip - out and focused on the road. More villagers blocking the way. They were spread out in the street and on the sidewalk. But... There!

“Hold on and take cover!” she yelled, then pulled the steering wheel to the right, crashing into and through a wooden gate. In the yard behind it, the pickup scattered a flock of chickens and rammed a manure heap, spreading chicken shit all over the area. 

“Whoa!”

“What are you doing?”

“No!”

Sarah ignored the complaints, drove over the heap and kept accelerating. She needed enough speed to break through the gate on the other side of the yard, or the zombies would corner them in the yard. And that wouldn’t end well for anyone.

“Hold on!” she yelled again, then ducked - this gate was lower, and the stone arch tore off the pickup’s roof as the wooden gate splintered and gave way.

But they were on the road again, and almost out of the village.

“Everyone OK?” Chuck yelled.

“Are you trying to kill us?” Bane yelled back.

“They’re OK,” Chuck reported.

Another corner, but no zombies. And the road out of the village was free.

“Sniper!” she heard Casey yell. 

She reflexively made the truck swerve moments before a shot hit the windshield, turning half of it into a spiderweb of cracks. And Chuck screamed.

“Chuck!” She kept weaving and risked a glance at him.

“I’m OK. Just…”

He was OK. She pressed down on the accelerator. The wide-open road wasn’t ideal, but going off-road would be worse, and taking cover behind a building would see them overrun with zombies in short order.

Someone - Casey - was shooting back from the truck bed. Another one joined, probably Bane. But another shot hit the hood, so the sniper was still active. She ducked again and told Chuck to take cover. He couldn’t do anything right now.

She weaved the truck back and forth over all over the road - but it was a narrow road, and the more she swerved, the slower she drove, which made her an easier target. And made it harder for Casey and Bane to shoot back.

Another shot hit the hood, and the engine’s noise changed.

“Uh, oh,” Chuck commented.

“It’s still running,” she said.

“We’re leaking oil!” Caridad yelled from the back.

Another shot hit the side window right behind her, showering her with fragments. The sniper was behind them, now. And there was a patch of forest coming up ahead.

“Rocket!”

Sarah drove the truck into the ditch, narrowly avoiding the explosion that tore up the road. She also managed to keep the pickup from rolling over, but she didn’t manage to avoid the large rock in the way.

Fortunately, they’d lost enough speed, so the impact didn’t throw her through the remains of the windshield, but she was still stunned for a moment from hitting the steering wheel.

“Everyone OK?” Chuck yelled again.

“Hurt my ankle!” Grimes yelled back.

“No worse than before,” Casey reported.

“Yes.” Bane must have jumped off before the impact - she was already in the ditch and firing.

And Caridad… Sarah slid out of the car and saw the Slayer was trying to pull the pickup off the rock. “It’s done for,” she snapped at the woman. “We need to take cover - the truck will draw more rockets.”

She crouched down in the ditch and took stock of the situation. They were about two hundred yards from the edge of the forest. The sniper was still firing, but they could use the ditch as cover.

“Got the sniper!” Casey announced.

“Let’s move into the forest, then. Before they move up the RPG,” Sarah replied.

“I can take them out as well,” the agent insisted.

“The zombies are coming, too!” Caridad said, pointing back at the village.

Indeed, a veritable mob was forming there, covering the road as they advanced.

Casey cursed but slid down into the ditch. “Let’s book it, then.”

“Ah…” Grimes said. “I can’t exactly run.”

“I’ll carry you.” Caridad didn’t wait for an answer but grabbed Grimes and slung him over her shoulder. “Let’s go!”

They hurried as best as they could - you couldn’t run well in the ditch, not hunched over to keep from exposing your head - but still outpaced the zombies, and no one took a shot at them until they reached the forest.

Unfortunately, the mob of mind-controlled villagers - she wouldn’t call it a zombie horde - didn’t look like they were giving up.

*****

Chuck was panting when they reached the forest after what felt like an hour running under invisible guns which would fire at any moment to cut them down, but he wasn’t exhausted. He still sat down behind the thickest tree to catch his breath, of course, while Caridad put down Morgan and the others got into firing positions.

“We’ve got a few minutes, tops,” Sarah announced, “before the mob gets here.”

“Someone really doesn’t like us,” Caidad said. “And they don’t care about the attention they catch.”

“They probably control the area,” Sarah retorted. “And don’t have to worry about the authorities.”

“With mind control, that would be easy,” Bane agreed. Chuck didn’t like her tone, though. She sounded less horrified and more impressed. Envious, even. “We’ll have to move quickly, so we won’t be caught in the open when they leave the forest.”

“The Vodouist behind this is still alive,” Caridad objected. “And we haven’t checked Lindor’s grave yet.” She peered through the underbrush. “But Morgan won’t be able to outrun the zombies. Or outwalk.”

Chuck could see that Morgan was aware of that, but trying to be brave. “I could cover…” he began.

Chuck cut him off. “No.”

“No one dies. It’s a rule,” Caridad added.

Sarah took charge. “We’ll split up. The wounded fall back and lure the mob away, the rest of us circle around and take out whoever is behind this.”

Chuck nodded. It was a sound plan, especially given their situation. But…

“Casey won’t be able to carry Morgan,” Caridad pointed out what Chuck had just thought of.

“You’ll have to go with them,” Sarah replied. “Bane, Chuck and I will go back.”

It was a sound plan, with decent odds. Probably. Chuck wasn’t sure if it was the best pan they could make. But time was running out. Even Caridad realised that, though she was frowning heavily.

“Move along the road in the forest, then cut cross-country to the bay we discovered. Don’t call anyone local for transportation,” Sarah told her.

Casey bared his teeth as the Slayer nodded, then closed his mouth again. Chuck didn’t know what had made the man angry.

“Let’s go!” Sarah snapped, after a last glance at the advancing mob.

Then they were off, moving through the forest together before splitting off. They weren’t running, for which Chuck was grateful. Even jogging wasn’t easy, in the rough terrain, but he wouldn’t tire out too quickly at this pace.

“If we get spotted, we’ll be mobbed,” Bane said when they reached the edge of the forest, near a small pond with the remains of a hut.

He chuckled at the rhyme, then frowned at his loss of control.

“We’ll have to be careful,” Sarah retorted.

“They’ll notice once we take out their leader.”

At which point the spell on the villagers would be broken. Chuck hoped so, at least. It had worked for the bezoar in Sunnydale, but he wasn’t an expert for Voodoo mind control. Or Vodou, in this case.

“We can evade them once the leader is dead,” Sarah said.

He realised that he was still carrying the SMG. It was a Heckler & Koch MP5 - an older model. Very, very belatedly, he checked the magazine. It was about half-full - not exactly a lot of ammunition. Not that he could shoot very well, anyway. Not without the Intersect. Which hadn’t kicked in since the fight.

“We have to find him, first,” Bane pointed out.

“Uh…” Chuck spoke up. “That shouldn’t be too hard. They’ll be ordering people around and probably carrying a lot of Vodouist symbols and stuff. I think.”

Bane didn’t look convinced, but Sarah nodded. “We’ll use the small stream to the west to get into the village. We can fashion some floating debris as cover using the hut here.”

“Are you serious?” Bane stared at her.

“Would you rather attempt to seduce a mind-controlled villager or guard?” Sarah shot back. “Or crawl through the fields?”

Bane glared back but didn’t voice another protest.

Ten minutes later, they had some ‘broken crates’ ready that would let them breathe and keep their weapons dry while floating downstream. And hide their approach. In theory.

Bane still didn’t look happy, but Chuck couldn’t tell if it was because she thought the plan wouldn’t work, or because it was Sarah’s plan. He pulled off his white shirt - it would only hinder him in the water - but he kept his black slacks on. Camouflage for his pale legs. And he really didn’t want to go into combat in his underwear.

Sarah and Bane didn’t have that problem - their skirts and tops weren’t tight and skimpy enough to pass as swimwear, but they would still let them swim easily.

“Keep behind me,” Sarah told them. “We’ll find a spot with some cover to get out of the stream, then look for the leader.”

Chuck nodded, stuffing his shirt and submachine gun into the ‘crate’, then slowly lowered it into the stream.

“Chuck.”

He turned his head while he kept a grip on the crate. “Yes, Sarah?”

She kissed him, then smiled and backed off. “Be careful.”

A moment later, she was in the water, head disappearing beneath her crate.

“Love you,” Chuck whispered, then followed her.

The current wasn’t very strong, and the water was colder than expected. Perhaps he should have kept his shirt on? And trying to keep track of Sarah was difficult, even though the crates they used as cover had large gaps - Chuck tended to get turned around while drifting.

But this was what spies did, he reminded himself. Sneaking into forbidden, dangerous places to find secrets. And, in this case, to kill enemies. Which made it more like an assassination - or would, if they weren’t going after a mind-controlling Vodouist working with demons. He pressed his lips together. Sending so many civilians - children! - at them, not to mention that the entire village had been effectively enslaved… Focusing on that helped, he found.

Despite that, he was still feeling cold and wanted to get out of the water straight away by the time they finally reached the village. But Sarah led them on, past the first buildings, to… Oh. The old mill. It looked abandoned, but it was built partially over the stream. It would provide the perfect cover to get out of the water and take a rest to recover before proceeding with the mission. The upper floor might even serve as an observation post. Or sniper nest.

Oh. There was the mill. Chuck was almost carried past the building by the current, which seemed to have grown stronger. But he managed to slide in next to the wheel. Climbing out of the water behind it, without losing his weapon and clothes, or getting spotted, was harder, but Sarah helped him.

And hugging her, even if it was only for a moment, helped with the cold as well.

“Upstairs,” she whispered. “Let’s take a look.”

So he had correctly anticipated that. Nice! He was smiling as he followed her up the stairs, then winced when they creaked. If anyone heard it…

But they reached the floor above without anyone sounding an alert. The view through the dusty windows wasn’t the best, but most of the village was open to them.

“I don’t see anyone who might be…” Bane suddenly gasped.

“Lindor?” Chuck asked.

“He’s dead!” she hissed.

“Not yet,” he corrected her. Although he suspected that the man might be dead - some practitioners allegedly turned themselves into zombies. The undead variant, not the mind-controlled one. He took a look himself. There was a man matching the pictures in his file, in the square, talking to - no, ordering - the guards.

“He must have faked his death,” Sarah said next to him. “Or used a body-double.”

“Or it’s a twin,” Chuck added.

“Or this is a body double,” Bane replied without taking her eyes off the man. “I can nail him with my rifle from here.”

Which would give away their position, but wouldn’t do much against a zombie. Chuck really wished that he had a flame thrower. Even though that would risk setting the village on fire. “I think we need to be closer,” he said. “We need to confirm his death and his identity.” 

Bane stared at him. “We can get a blood sample after his death.”

“Uh, I think we need to get the body. All parts of it.” To properly dispose of such a zombie, they would have to take the body to a safe place. Beheading it and sewing its mouth shut after stuffing salt into it took time. At least that was what Morgan had told them would be most likely to work on any zombie you couldn’t simply behead or burn.

Bane was staring at him as if he were crazy. Well, to someone who didn’t know about demons, chuck would sound weird.

“There are half a dozen guards. We need to take them out, then take Lindor down,” Sarah said.

“I can shoot him from here. With him and Obas dead, the rest should be thrown into disarray,” Bane insisted.

It didn’t seem as if the spy’d come around. Chuck glanced at Sara. She was frowning. “Wait until we’re in position,” she said. “Chuck and I will move closer.” So, she had also realised that Bane wouldn’t budge.

“That’s…” Bane started, but Sarah was already moving down the stairs. Chuck flashed a smile that probably wasn’t as confident as he wanted it to be, then followed her.

His wet slacks were covered in dust, he noticed. They would need new clothes if they wanted to return to the yacht without drawing attention. He shook his head. He had to focus on taking down Lindor. Anything else could wait. “So… how do we do this?” he asked in a whisper when he crouched down next to Sarah at the mill’s door.

“We’ll go through the backyards there,” she replied, pointing at a row of houses lining the stream’s shore. “That will get us close to the square.”

Close, but not close enough, if Chuck remembered the village’s layout correctly.

“We’ll have to rush the last leg, though,” Sarah confirmed his assumption.

“Ah.”

This would be a good time for the Intersect to start working again, Chuck thought.

But it didn’t. That he stumbled over the uneven floorboards, following Sarah out of the mill proved that. And since they were dealing with the supernatural, he couldn’t even hope to flash on something useful. And while he had experience in fighting demons, he hadn’t fought zombies. Well, not before today.

But he still followed Sarah, dashing across the street and climbing over the fence there, into the yard of the closest house. Which took longer than it should have, of course, since his shirt got caught on the fence and ended up with a huge tear in it.

But now they were in the backyards, hidden from sight, and moving towards the village centre. One fence a time.

His trousers were sporting two tears and the shirt one by the time they reached the end of the row. But they had made it. Now all that was left was the assault straight down the road.

Which usually didn’t end well in any movie Chuck had seen where the enemy had automatic weapons. But Sarah knew what she was doing. She was an experienced spy. 

“Alright, I’ll give Bane the signal. Once she starts shooting, we’ll rush ahead, to the corner there, and break into the café to take cover,” she whispered, crouching behind the gate to the street.

“Right,” Chuck replied, then swallowed. He could do this. He had to do this. His friends were counting on him. Sarah needed his help.

“Open fire,” Sarah whispered into her comm.

A moment later, a shot rang out from the mill, followed by another as Chuck heard screaming ahead of them.

“Go!”

Sarah was out of the gate and running before Chuck could start to follow her. But he ran. As fast as he could. Halfway to the corner, a man appeared there, clutching an assault rifle - FAL - in his hands. Sarah shot him before Chuck could call out, and the man dropped to the ground.

She scooped up the rifle as she crouched down at the corner. “Get in through the window,” she snapped when Chuck caught up.

The window was closed. Should he break it… No, there was an open window. Feeling stupid, he quickly pushed it open and climbed inside. “Clear!” he announced a little belatedly.

Sarah joined him a moment later, sliding over the windowsill in a smooth movement that left her crouching and facing the front. “Come!”

They moved to the front of the café - or perhaps ‘tavern’ would suit it better; it didn’t look like a café. ‘Dive’ might also fit.

Then Chuck glanced out the front window and gritted his teeth. “I can’t see Lindor,” he hissed.

“He’s behind the wall on the other side. Bane hit him, but he’s not down,” Sarah said.

How had she… Oh. There were two guards on each side, glancing behind them regularly. And some blood on the ground - not much, though. The two downed guards in the centre of the square were lying in pools of their own blood, in comparison.

“Bane can’t hold out much longer - they’re moving to flank her,” Sarah said. “We need to eliminate the guards and take out Lindor.”

“Alright,” Chuck said with more confidence than he felt. He wet his lips. “Ready.”

“Fire!” Sarah whispered, raising.

Chuck stood, aiming his submachine gun at the guards on his side. Semi-automatic aimed fire, he reminded himself as he squeezed off the first shot. And another. And another.

But he missed, and the guards took cover - or started to; one of them was shot by Sarah, who had dropped the guards on her side already, before he could reach the wall behind them.

The other, though, was behind cover now. And Lindor would be warned.

Sarah didn’t berate him, though - she dashed out of the house. Rushing the enemy position.

Chuck cursed himself and followed her. If only he had hit his targets. Killed them. If only the Intersect worked. Now… His eyes widened as three armed thugs appeared on the right side of the square just as Sarah and Chuck were halfway across and completely exposed. They were dead! And it was his fault! “Sar..” he started to yell.

And then his gun was firing, and the men dropped to the ground. Three shots, three kills. He charged forward, vaulting over the wall, firing before he hit the ground and putting two bullets into the last guard who had been about to fire on Sarah.

Chuck rolled and came up with his gun aimed at Lindor before the man could react, squeezing the trigger. On an empty chamber. He threw himself to the side, making Lindor miss his shot, then pushed off and jumped towards the fallen guard’s weapon. Another shot missed his legs by inches as he grabbed the gun - a G3 - and fired a burst into the Vodouist.

Lindor was hit in the chest and stomach and sent stumbling back but didn’t fall. He didn’t bleed much, either. And he still had his gun.

But before the man cold shoot Chuck, Sarah appeared on the wall and pounced, tackling Lindor to the ground. Her knife flashed, cutting the man’s throat as she kicked the gun out of his hand.

Lindor threw her off, his slashed throat making gurgling noises as he tried to speak, but Chuck reached the zombie before he could pick up or draw a weapon. He kicked Lindor’s leg, sending him sprawling again, then jumped on him, going for a pin.

As they struggled, Sarah joined in, grabbing Lindor’s hair and pulling his head back. Then she started to saw with her blade.

The zombie kept struggling, kicking and trying to hit Chuck with his fists, until, finally, his head separated from his neck and he collapsed.

“Salt!” Chuck spat. “Salt and sewing!”

Then he saw the bracelet on the corpse’s arm and flashed.

A museum. A masked thief on a security camera record. A dead body of a known burglar found on a beach. A missing goldsmith specialising in custom orders and known for his distinct style.

He blinked. “The bracelet! It’s a gris-gris! A Vodouist talisman! Stolen from a museum in Paris five years ago. He must have had it worked into a bracelet.”

Sarah looked at the bracelet, then at him.

“It holds his power… I think.” Morgan was the Watcher-in-training, but Chuck had read up on Vodouists on the way here.

“I didn’t think your information covered this,” Sarah said.

“It doesn’t,” he told her what she was asking. “But this was filed as an art theft. The talisman was part of a collection in Paris. And if Lindor had had it stolen, it must be powerful.”

“Can we handle it safely?” She asked, looking around. “Target down,” she said into her comm.

“Uh…”

“Bane’s had to move. There’s still a group of guards around,” she informed him as she moved to the corner, leading with her gun.

Which left him to deal with the body. And the possibly-evil-and-dangerous artefact. Before the enemies returned to ask for new orders. “No pressure,” he mumbled, kneeling next to Lindor’s corpse.

He should have brought gloves. Surgical gloves would be very useful right now. Or just leather gloves - he didn’t want to touch the gris-gris with his bare hands. Although his shirt was beyond hope anyway.

He pulled it off and wrapped it around his hands, then fiddled with the bracelet. Where was the latch? Was there even a latch? If this was what had kept - and probably was keeping - Lindor from passing on, then the Vodouist might not have wanted to have it be removable. Not without cutting off his hand. Did Chuck have to do that? He didn’t have a knife, and this was… There!

Something snapped, and the bracelet came off. He gathered it in the shirt, then wrapped the head in it as well.

“Done!” he said. “We can leave.”

Instead of answering, Sarah fired a burst from her rifle.

It seemed that leaving would be a little more difficult than Chuck had thought.

*****

Sarah fired another shot at the thug on the other side of the square, missing but driving the man to take cover behind the corner. It was obvious that Lindor’s men hadn’t been mind-controlled - at least not the group attacking them. And that Bane hadn’t kept them distracted enough. “We need to fall back,” she told Chuck. They were too exposed here.

“Uh… where to?”

She glanced behind for a moment, to adjust the map in her head. There was the road they had taken with the pickup, but it was too exposed - and they would risk running into the forces chasing Casey and the others. That left crossing the stream and going west. She shot another bullet at the corner, to discourage any rush, and activated her comm. “Position?”

“I’m near the beach,” Bane replied. “Still under fire.”

The beach. The fishing boats. “We’ll head there as well,” she told Bane. “Hold out.”

Sarah glanced back. Chuck had stripped off his shirt and used it to carry Lindor’s severed head. The barbarian look didn’t fit him, in her opinion. “We need to get to the beach,” she told him.

“Aren’t the enemies between us and the beach?”

“Yes. We’ll sneak around them.”

“Uh… ok.”

It was better than trying to break through their lines. And there was a route through the smaller alleys. “Come,” she said firing again, then falling back under cover of the wall. “We’ll go through that house.” She pointed at the big house behind them. It looked too shabby to be Lindor’s or Oba’s. Probably the mayor’s.

The door looked sturdy and locked, but the windows weren’t much of an obstacle, though she had to help Chuck climb in without cutting himself on the remains of the glass panes. Apparently, the Intersect’s skills weren’t working any more.

They hurried through the cluttered - and dusty - house to the backdoor. She took point, checking the yard. Clear. But their pursuers would be close behind. And she was down to one magazine for her rifle. “Go!” she said, pointing at the fence. “And head left after clearing it.”

She covered the back of the house while Chuck scrambled over the fence, then followed him. A shot went past her right when she dropped to the ground - the enemy had arrived.

She fired back through a gap in the fence, then rolled to the side behind a stone pillar. “Chuck!” She nodded to her left, the direction of the beach.

He ran in a crouch while she covered him with two more shots. Seventeen left. Not ideal.

As soon as he had reached the temporary safety of the corner, she dashed out of cover herself. More shots rang out, but didn’t even come close, and a moment later, she slid to a stop next to Chuck. “Go!” she snapped.

They rushed down the back alley. If the enemy wasn’t incompetent, they would be trying to flank them, Or overtake them. That meant… She reached the next corner and crouched, aiming down the alley to the main road.

A few seconds later, a man appeared, running. She shot him before he could react, then rushed on - still going towards the beach, roughly. But they would have to cross the main road at one point, to reach Bane.

They took the next corner, and Sarah led them to the main road. Their enemies would have become more cautious after losing one man, which would slow them down. A glance around the corner confirmed it - two more were just about to sprint past the next alley.

Sarah shot at them, hitting one in the leg, and both took cover. She bit her lower lip for a moment - they had to risk it. “I’ll cover us,” she whispered. “Run across the street!”

He didn’t argue, and she slid around the corner, firing as they ran. She used ten more bullets, missing with all of them, but so did the enemy, and Chuck and Sarah were on the beach side of the main road.

Now all they had to do was to reach the beach and get a fishing boat. And escape the village without getting shot. And gather up Bane.

*****

They sprinted down the next alley. Chuck tried not to think of what exactly was hitting his leg with each step. And hoped that his trousers were still wet from the trip in the stream, not from the blood leaking out of the severed head. 

And, panting and struggling to keep up with Sarah, he once more promised himself that he would run harder in the mornings. Would the Intersect’s skill take exhaustion into account? Or would he try to accomplish something, only to fail utterly? He’d have to ask Dad about that.

He shook his head. He was running for his life; he had to focus.

The alley had several turns, which was a good thing because it meant any pursuit couldn’t shoot them from far behind. But it also meant they couldn’t see too far ahead, and might unexpectedly run into some guards.

Or, as it turned out, a wall. Shit.

But as Chuck was about to turn and backtrack, Sarah sped up, running straight at the corner where the wall met the house next to them, jumped, kicked off the other wall, and landed on top of the obstacle barring their way. “Jump, Chuck!” she yelled, holding out her hand as she straddled the wall.

He blinked, then clenched his teeth and ran towards her. He could do this. He had to do this. It would be great if the Intersect took over right now. He pushed off, slinging himself at the wall - at her - one hand reaching for hers.

And she grabbed it. He pulled himself up, feet scrabbling for purchase on the brick wall. He weighed more than her, even without the severed head and assault rifle on his back, and if he managed to drag her down with him… But he reached the top, Lindor’s head smacking against the wall as he grabbed the top of it, then dragged himself over it.

“Down!” Sarah suddenly yelled, and he felt her hand on his belt before she heaved, and both of them tumbled down as several shots rang out.

Their enemies had caught up. Well, they had to go over the wall as well, now.

“Move!” Sarah pushed him forward. He reached the next corner - there was the beach ahead - and glanced back. Sarah was moving backwards, rifle at the shoulder. Something appeared on top of the wall, and she fired. A head flew back with a spray of blood.

“That’ll hold them for a while. Look for a boat, a fast one,” she snapped, falling further back.

A fast boat. A fast boat. He scanned the beach. Fishing boat. Fishing boat. Old sailing fishing boat. Rowboat. That one looked fast. It also looked like it was missing an engine. 

He blinked. This was a village ruled by a drug lord. They wouldn’t bother with old boats or fishing boats. And there was a boathouse there, down the beach.

He started to run. Obas or Lindor would have kept his private craft in the boathouse. Well-maintained so he would have been able to set out whenever he wanted. It would have been the fastest boat in the village. Perfect.

When the armed man stepped out from the boathouse, gun rising to aim at him, Chuck realised that drug lords also tended to have their toys under guard. He dived to the ground, rolling through the sand, as the man fired. Missed! He scrambled for his rifle, but the sling had slipped, and there came the guard…

“Chuck!” Sarah shot the man down with a burst and dashed forward. “Are you hurt?”

“No!” He spat out some sand.

She passed him and grabbed the rifle from the dead thug. “Come!”

He got up, almost falling down again, and fell into a run. They were horribly exposed.

As if someone had read his thoughts, more shots were fired, and bullets kicked up sand next to him.

Sarah returned fire, crouching and moving so Chuck wouldn’t block her line of sight. And drawing fire, he realised. For him.

He reached the boathouse and whirled around, finally managing to bring his own gun to bear. “Sarah!” He started firing. Covering fire - he didn’t have to hit anyone. And he didn’t hit anyone.

She jumped up and dashed towards him. “Get the boat moving!” she yelled, whirling to take over at the door.

“Yes,” he replied, turning around. A shot broke through the wall next to him, and he ducked with a shriek. “I’m OK!” he yelled before she could be distracted.

There was the boat he had expected. It looked fast, more modern than the fishing boats outside… he flashed. 

It was a 2004 Stingray 180. And he knew exactly how to handle it.

A minute later, the engine was running. “Sarah! We need to open the doors!”

She heard him, touched her ear - her comm - and sprinted along the wall towards the front of the boathouse. Towards the gate. “Start sailing!” she yelled, then kicked the bar keeping the gate closed way.

He pushed the throttle, and the boat started to move - faster than he expected. But Sarah was ready, nimbly jumping down into.

Then they were on the water, speeding away.

“Drive in a wide circle,” she yelled over the noise from the engines. “We’ll pick up Bane at the mouth of the stream.”

He looked to their side, calculated the course - and pushed the throttle all the way up.

“Hold on!” he yelled as the boat shot through the water, cutting through the waves. The remaining thugs were shooting at them, but Chuck couldn’t pay attention. Just keeping this monster on course and from capsizing took all he had. But they rapidly approached the stream’s mouth, and… there was Bane, sprinting across the beach, firing wildly at some unseen enemies before jumping into the water where it was deep enough for the boat to approach.

Which Chuck did, slowing down as Sarah started to shoot again. But she was alone, and they were a big target. Chuck saw several shots hit the boat. Hopefully, they wouldn’t do any damage. Well, the craft only had to last an hour longer, or so. 

Then a burst hit the windshield, and he flinched. “Hurry!” he yelled. That had been far too close!

“I’m out of ammo,” Sarah announced. “Hand me your gun!”

He managed to pass her the G3 without getting entangled in its sling, and Sarah started firing again just as Bane finally climbed inside.

Chuck gritted his teeth and pushed the throttle up again. He took a tight turn, almost running aground, but they made it and soon were out of range of the thugs’ weapons.

Mission accomplished.

*****


	20. The Complication

**Haiti, West of Petit-Troup-de-Nippes, January 6th, 2008**

“Team One to Team Two. Mission accomplished. Over. Team One to Team Two. Mission accomplished. Over.”

While Sarah tried to reach Casey and the others, Chuck kept an eye on the beach and village behind them. He had slowed down the boat some so the engine noise wouldn’t make talking over the radio impossible - and that would make them an easier target. Granted, they were out of range of most small arms, but if the drug smugglers had an anti-material rifle... 

“I can’t raise them on the radio,” Sarah said. “We must be out of range.”

“What about the boat’s radio?” Chuck asked.

“Not compatible with our encryption,” she replied.

“Ah. I think I could link them, though,” he offered. It wouldn’t be too hard - there were tools in the boat. Or should be.

“Even so, they wouldn’t be able to answer,” Bane said. 

“We’ll move to our rally point and try to contact them from there,” Sarah said.

Chuck pushed the throttle, and the boat sped up again. “Aren’t we leading them straight to our yacht?” he yelled over the engine’s noise.

“They only know the direction down the coast we’re using,” Sarah yelled back. 

“Alright. I don’t see them pursuing us, anyway,” Chuck replied.

“They might be in vehicles on land,” Bane pointed out.

Chuck hoped the drug smugglers were scattering instead. Or looting Lindor and Obas’s homes. Although if they had been mind-controlled as well, and that hadn’t ended with the death of Lindor… If Lindor was actually dead already.

Couldn’t this boat go faster? They had a Vodouist to kill.

*****

The first rallying spot was the cove they had visited before the whole mission had started to go wrong. Chuck guided the boat onto the beach - there wasn’t anything to serve as a pier, apart from a couple rocks that were too far apart for anyone but Caridad to comfortably and safely use as stepping stones - while Sarah tried to contact Casey and the others again.

“I’ve reached them!” she announced as the boat came to a stop with the bow in the sand. “They managed to lose pursuit.”

“Did the zombies stop chasing them?” Chuck asked.

“Casey couldn’t tell if they stopped because they lost them, or because the mind-control broke,” Sarah told him.

“How would that break?” Bane looked at them. “You said they would be following the last order.”

Damn. “They probably got confused,” Chuck explained, “when they lost their target, and, absent new orders, what with Obas and Lindor dead…” He didn’t actually know what would happen. Morgan would. Probably.

Bane nodded, though she didn’t look convinced. Or happy. “How long until they’re here?”

“They’ve acquired a car, so fifteen minutes.” Sarah jumped on the beach, still carrying the assault rifle he had originally picked up.

“Fifteen minutes?” Chuck frowned. They hadn’t taken that long to reach the village from here.

“They’re taking a detour to avoid pursuit,” Sarah told him.

“Ah.” He should’ve known that.

“How’s Morgan?” Bane asked.

Sarah looked surprised for a moment, Chuck noticed. “Casey didn’t say anything about anyone else getting wounded,” she said.

“Good.” Bane smiled.

If it was a fake smile, then she could have become an award-winning actress instead of a spy, in Chuck’s opinion. On the other hand, he knew that Bane was a very good spy.

“Stay in the boat, Chuck,” Sarah said over her shoulder. “We’ll cover the approaches.”

“Right,” he replied. Because he hadn’t a longarm left - and wouldn’t be able to use it as well as Sarah and Bane, anyway.

Sixteen minutes after they had made contact, a beat-up car - a Citroën 2CV, Chuck recognised the model without help from the Intersect - arrived at the cove. Casey must have stolen it from a local. Well, they would hopefully get it back after the group had left.

Casey was driving, looking none the worse for wear as he bared his teeth in what probably would have been a friendly smile on someone else. Caridad got out before the car rolled to a stop, then practically ripped Morgan out of the 2CV.

“I can limp!” Morgan protested, but she seemed to ignore him as she lifted him up and carried him over to the boat. “No time!” she yelled.

Chuck looked up to where Sarah and Bane had taken up positions.

“We picked up a tail,” Casey explained as he made his way to Chuck.

A moment later, Sarah and Bane started shooting.

Great. Chuck hoped that they had enough fuel to reach the port where they had left the yacht. Or, at least, a safe spot to make landfall.

He started the engine, getting ready to back away from the beach. Caridad dropped Morgan on the bench behind him and jumped on the foredeck. “Wait!” Chuck yelled. She turned her head and glared at him, and he swallowed. “They’ll stop them, then fall back and we’ll sail away!”

The Slayer frowned.

“We’ve got wounded,” Morgan added. 

Of course, Casey didn’t take the hint. “I can fight,” he grunted and moved towards the foredeck as well. At least he hadn’t jumped overboard right away.

Fortunately, just then, Sarah and Bane scrambled back, then slid down the slope leading to the beach, and Casey dropped on the deck with his rifle - presumably to cover them. Were the enemies so close? And were they zombies or criminals?

Chuck wet his lips and gripped the throttle, glancing over his shoulder to judge if he should back out of the cove all the way in reverse, or if he should risk a turn inside. It looked large enough for a spin, but what if he had missed some rock under the water?

Sarah reached the boat first, scrambling up the bow. Bane was close behind but stumbled on the beach. Shots rang out, hitting the sand near Bane - and the boat. One whipped past Chuck, and he ducked with a gasp.

Casey returned fire. “Gotcha, bastard!” Chuck heard him mutter as he straightened. Where was Bane?

There! The spy had reached the boat, throwing her gun on top of the deck, then gripped the railing. 

And Caridad reached down and hoisted her on board.

Chuck put the boat in reverse and pushed the throttle forward. Casey kept firing, joined by Sarah - the others must have brought more ammunition. He glanced up the slope. There were several people shooting at them. Stopping would be too risky, Chuck decided. “Hold on!” he yelled, and sped up, weaving the boat a little as he took the direct route to the open sea.

More shots hit the boat, making him flinch, but no one got hit - and nothing vital broke. At least not that he noticed.

Then they were out of the cove, and he turned the boat around in a tight turn before sailing away at max speed eastwards.

He didn’t relax until they were out of sight of the cove. “Whew, guys!” He smiled. “Guess we made it. And we should have enough fuel to…” He trailed off as he checked the gauge. “Uh…”

“‘Uh’? I don’t like hearing that,” Casey growled.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked.

“Someone must have holed the fuel tank,” Chuck replied, grimacing. “We’re losing fuel at a high rate.”

“I’ll check!” Caridad said. “Stop the boat for a moment!” A second later, she was hanging from the railing, peering at the boat’s hull - and at the water.

Chuck coughed after stopping the engine. “Err… the fuel tank is there.” He pointed at the location.

She sent him a withering glare - and another at the grinning Casey - then jumped into the water.

Less than half a minute later, she resurfaced. “There’re a few leaks. Give me something to plug them!”

“Uh…” What would be the best way to plug the holes? Welding? Or glueing? Did they have the supplies and tools?

“Stuff some rags into the holes!” Casey snapped, interrupting Chuck’s frantic thoughts. “Use your strength to push them in so they won’t get ripped out once we sail again.”

To Chuck’s surprise, Caridad followed the orders - or the instructions without complaints, and a few minutes later, they were speeding off again. They didn’t have quite enough fuel to reach the yacht any more, but they would be close enough to make it the rest of the way on foot. 

Which, now that Chuck was thinking of it, would allow them to check for a trap or an ambush before sailing into the port. If they even wanted to head back to the yacht - their cover was probably compromised, if someone ran the plates of their rental car. If there had been any plates left after the ambush on the road.

Well, that wasn’t much of a problem, Chuck thought. Unlike… “So, guys… we need to deal with Lindor’s head,” he said. With the reduced speed to save fuel, the engine noise wasn’t too loud any more, either.

“You took his head?” Caridad asked.

“Well, if he is an undead zombie, you need to stuff salt in his mouth and sew it shut,” Morgan said.

“What?” Bane asked. “You aren’t seriously proposing that we do such a thing, are you?”

“Well… it’s kind of a Vodouist burial rite?” Morgan smiled - rather weakly, though.

“We just need a DNA sample, so we can check it against the samples I took when I killed him,” Bane replied. “If it matches, he had a twin. If not, someone passed himself off as him. I know I killed him.”

“It certainly wouldn’t hurt doing the salt and sewing thing,” Morgan retorted. “Just in case, you know?”

“‘Just in case’?” Bane frowned. “Is that more superstition?”

“Yes,” Morgan said. “Then we burn it and scatter the ashes into a river.”

Bane’s expression would have been amusing if this wasn’t serious.

And, Chuck added to himself, if they didn’t have to keep the supernatural a secret from the spy. Something Morgan was apparently ignoring.

“Guys!” Chuck stepped in. Not literally - he still had to steer the boat. “We don’t have salt or a sewing kit right now, right? So…”

“I’ve brought both,” Morgan interrupted him. “Seeing as we were entering zombie land.”

“Good thinking,” Caridad added.

“Thank you.”

Chuck pressed his lips together. Was he the only one trying to keep the secret? He suddenly had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Was Morgan trying to tell Bane about the supernatural without being obvious about it? And why?

Well, the obvious reason would be that Morgan had fallen in love with the spy and wanted to show off. On the other hand, he knew what Phil would say about this. As did Caridad, of course.

“Let’s just do it,” Casey growled. “I’ve seen enough weird shit in the jungle to not take any chances.”

“Agent Casey!” Bane seemed to feel betrayed. “Are you saying…” she trailed off.

“Take the DNA sample,” Sarah said. “Then we dispose of the head before we leave the island.”

Chuck couldn’t see Bane’s expression as she went to work, not while steering the boat, but he was certain that she didn’t look happy. 

*****

Sarah stood up after Grimes started to sew. She had seen enough to do it herself, should the need ever arise. Which she hoped wouldn’t be the case.

Shaking her head, she joined Chuck at the helm. “That’s the head taken care of,” she commented.

“We still should burn it,” he replied. “Fire cleanses.”

“Save some fuel, then,” she told him, though with a grin.

“I’m trying to save fuel,” he said.

“And doing a good job,” she reassured him. Casey would be able to do better, but since the NSA agent hadn’t insisted on taking over, Chuck had to be doing well enough - not even the wounds he had taken would stop Casey otherwise. Especially not with Caridad present.

“Thanks,” he said, but he didn’t seem to believe her.

She touched his shoulder. “Chuck, you did well,” she repeated herself.

“I got lucky,” he retorted. After a glance over his shoulder - checking for Bane, she realised - he added sotto voce: “If the Intersect hadn’t kicked in…”

“But it did. You had a breakthrough.”

“No. I couldn’t duplicate it. Not consciously.”

Ah. “But you did activate it again. We just have to find out how to do so reliably.” And she had some suspicions. Although if she was correct, then testing would be difficult. Or dangerous.

He nodded with a sigh.

So, it wasn’t just that. What could…? Oh. “Does it bother you that you killed those thugs?”

“They were trying to kill us,” he said quickly. Very quickly.

So, yes, it did bother him.

“I just did it, you know? Hit them, grabbed a gun, started shooting. Without thinking about it. I just knew, and did it,” he went on.

She turned around and leaned against the side of the helm’s console. That way, she could keep an eye on Bane, who was in the back, looking at the coastline. “It would be a reason to worry if it didn’t bother you.”

“It feels like mind-control. Only it doesn’t. If that makes any sense.”

It didn’t, so she looked at him and frowned with a puzzled expression.

He sighed. “It doesn’t feel like mind-control while it’s happening. Or rather, moving like that feels natural, not like being a puppet. I guess that would be body-control.”

“Well, you’ve got the Intersect in your brain,” she replied. “But we’ll have to look into this.” With Orion.

He nodded. “I don’t want to start killing without thinking about it. What if I had done this when the villagers were chasing us?”

As Bane had suggested. Sarah winced - that would have destroyed Chuck. Her as well, probably. Maybe even Casey. “We’ll look into it,” she said again. And Orion better had some answers and a solution. She wouldn’t lose Chuck to the Intersect. “And we’ll have to step up your training,” she added.

“I need more stamina,” Chuck replied, looking glum.

“More stamina never hurts,” she told him with a grin, “but I was thinking about more martial arts. Your body needs to get used to the techniques you used, or you’ll be sore every time you use them.” Or suffered strains and similar afflictions.

“Uh…” he winced.

She patted his shoulder. “I’ll give you a massage tonight,” she reassured him.

“Thank you.” He was smiling at her, and, for the first time during their conversation, it looked honest. Then it vanished again. “Do you think Bane has any suspicions about magic? Morgan was a little too eager to dispose of Lindor, I think…”

She let out a sigh through her teeth. Grimes wouldn’t know subtle if it hit him in the head. “She might think Morgan is just superstitious, but in light of an entire village being mind-controlled... “

“And there were demons among the guards we fought. Some of them were tougher than normal humans,” he said. “If she’s working on Morgan…”

“...then he’ll spill,” Sarah finished for him with a frown.

*****

There wasn’t much fuel left when they made landfall, but enough to burn a severed head. An old steel bucket served as both crematorium and urn - after Caridad crushed the bones to powder with two rocks. Chuck approved, of course - he had heard the story of the Master’s bones in Sunnydale as well. 

They scattered the ashes in the next few streams on the way to Petit-Troup-de-Nippes, hopefully without attracting attention. And now they were in sight of the yacht they had left in port.

“With the setup the scum had, the authorities won’t investigate the incident until they believe Lindor and Obas are dead,” Casey said without lowering his binoculars. “That means they won’t have found the car we rented yet. We go in, sail out, arrange an accident on the open sea for our current cover and use our second set of identities to leave the island. Easy.”

“Corrupt cops might have gone in already,” Bane pointed out.

“They’ll be too busy trying to cover up their involvement - and loot the place - to investigate us,” Casey replied.

“Finding - and silencing - a scapegoat is usually a good way to cover up your own deeds,” the spy retorted.

“If you have the means.” Casey lowered the binoculars and shook his head as he turned back to face the rest of the group. “And the kind of cops working in such villages won’t.”

“They could have bought the chief of police in Petit-Troup-de-Nippes,” Sarah said. “He would have the means and the motive to come after us - or to prepare an ambush for ‘drug smugglers’ that leaves no one alive. We can’t risk simply going to the yacht and sailing out. We need to know the setup in the town.”

Everyone was suddenly looking at him, Chuck realised. 

“Uh…”

*****

**Haiti, Petit-Troup-de-Nippes, January 6th, 2008**

“Relax, Chuck. I’m with you. We’ll be fine.”

But Caridad’s presence wasn’t as reassuring as she thought. Chuck knew very well that Slayers often had a little problem with cutting and running from a fight. Mostly when demons were involved - which might be the case here.

That they had lost the disguise kits and had to improvise didn’t help, of course - Chuck really would have preferred a more thorough disguise than a large hat, different clothes and a different girlfriend. Especially since he didn’t speak the language, and if he did, he wouldn’t have the local accent, so they still had to pose as tourists. In clothes stolen from a local farm.

Hell, even if no one saw through their disguise, they might be arrested by mistake if a beat cop mixed up their descriptions. Or simply used the opportunity to hassle and extort some tourists for a bribe. And his muscles were starting to hurt.

“Anything?” Caridad asked as they walked across the market.

“No,” he replied, terser than he wanted. He hadn’t flashed on anything or anybody.

“I guess we’ll have to track down the chief of police, then,” Caridad said. “Or scout out the port for an ambush.”

Brave the police headquarters, or a possible ambush… Great. And the clock was ticking. If, as Morgan suspected, the enchantment on the zombies was ending with the death of the Vodouist responsible, sooner rather than later the local authorities would be hearing about the fighting. And it wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to connect the events to the tourist group who had arrived earlier. “We’ll pass by the police on the way to the port,” he decided. “Perhaps I’ll flash on the building, or catch a glimpse of an underling.” Or should that be minion?

“Alright!” She grabbed his arm and all but dragged him towards the older part of the town. “Let’s go!”

Slayers - they generally didn’t do patience well, unless actually lying in ambush waiting for a demon.

Chuck didn’t flash as they walked past the police headquarters. But he didn’t break his cover either, nor did he start babbling when a cop asked if they were lost, so he considered the detour a qualified success. Sort of.

But that meant they had to visit the port. They wouldn’t stand out - there were a number of tourists there - but Chuck still grew more nervous as they approached the waterfront.

“I don’t sense any demon,” Caridad whispered. “Haven’t spotted any ambush, either,” she added as they stopped to look at a picturesque old fishing boat.

“I haven’t flashed on anything, either,” Chuck replied. It seemed as if Case was correct and they could simply head to the yacht and leave. He smiled as he looked over the port, watching the various fishing boats tied up at the pier, a handful of yachts among them, the motor yacht entering the port.

He flashed. He saw pictures of the yacht. Suspected armament. And pictures of its owner, Enrique Sanchez - a leading member of a Colombian drug cartel. And he suddenly knew what the man was doing here as the Intersect connected the facts.

“He’s Lindor’s partner…” he whispered.

“Who?” Caridad asked.

“Enrique Sanchez, the owner of the yacht. Which is armed better than a patrol boat, by the way,” Chuck replied in a whisper.

“Really?” Caridad asked, staring at the yacht.

“Yes. And a ship that size… At least a dozen crew can fit easily on it.” Chuck could see half a dozen preparing to set anchor. “If Sanchez is on the yacht, then those would be his best men, too.”

“Or his most loyal,” Caridad pointed out. “As a drug cartel leader, he’d have to be wary of assassination attempts by ambitious underlings. Like vampires and demons.”

“Ah, yes.”

“So, is that the ambush we had to discover?” Caridad asked.

“Uh…” They didn’t know, did they? “I think this visit was planned before our attack,” he replied. “But Sanchez will either have heard about Lindor’s death already or do so soon. And with his powerbase intact, he’ll likely take over easily. Which means any confusion among the surviving ranks of Lindor’s gang will end soon. And any contacts among the authorities of the town will answer to him.”

“We’ll have to rush and be gone before he gets things organised!” Caridad said. “Let’s head back to the others!”

“Wait! There is someone on the deck… Quick, let us take a picture!” Chuck said, waving at Caridad to pose - in front of him, with the yacht in the background.

“What?”

“Do it!” he hissed. She complied grudgingly.

And Chuck used the zoom on his camera to check out the yacht. There was Sanchez, indeed, wearing a white suit. And carrying a suitcase that…

He flashed again. 

He saw a museum in Mexico City. A curator arrested for corruption and theft. An artefact replaced by a forgery. And a courier using a certain suitcase.

“Oh no!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Sanchez’s brought a stolen cursed Mayan sacrificial dagger.” A dagger rumoured to possess its wielders.

*****

“We’ll have to abandon the yacht,” Casey said. “It’s too dangerous to try to recover it. We’ll draw attention, and if they notice that we’ve got wounded…” 

Chuck’s muscles were really hurting now, but he didn’t include himself in that. He could still walk and run.

“That doesn’t matter,” Caridad cut in. “We need to take out Sanchez.”

“We need to recover the stolen dagger,” Morgan corrected her.

“Yeah, yeah - once we’ve taken out the big bad, we can loot his stuff as long as we want.” The Slayer made a dismissive gesture.

She wasn’t correct, Chuck knew. Unless they managed to avoid drawing any attention - and Slayers rarely managed that - the authorities would get involved. But she was right that odds were, they had to take out Sanchez to get the dagger - it didn’t look like he left the dagger alone.

“What’s so important about this dagger?” Bane asked.

“There’s a stolen chip hidden on the dagger that our allies need to recover,” Chuck replied. He had thought of that excuse on the way back.

“Err, yes,” Morgan said, nodding. “We only know that it’s important, not what’s on it, though. But we need to be careful - the dagger is said to be cursed.”

“Cursed?” Bane looked sceptical.

“Several people who handled it suffered from violent delusions. It has been theorised that there’s an unknown hallucinogenic substance present in the dagger’s handle, but Mexico refused to allow a thorough analysis,” Morgan explained. Apparently, he had learned the Watchers’ ‘excuses for the ignorant’ by heart.

“Yeah! So don’t touch it!” Caridad added. “Leave that to us!”

Chuck silently hoped that Morgan would handle the dagger. If Chuck’s friend got possessed, he would be far easier to handle than if that happened to Caridad.

Bane, at least, let the matter drop. “So, how do we get the dagger?” she asked instead.

Which was a good question, indeed. How would they run such an operation on the fly? Unless Lindor had kept a lot of secrets and everyone he had taken in confidence was dead, Sanchez would know, or would know soon, about Bane, which meant he’d be on guard against similar ploys. And he might know about the presence of a Slayer as well. He would certainly expect another attack like the one against Lindor.

Chuck looked at Sarah.

She smiled. “I’ve got a plan.” 

*****

Standing in a side alley, dressed in a stolen police uniform, Chuck wasn’t entirely sure if he was still on board with Sarah’s plan. Not only did it seem to have a quite significant potential to cause collateral damage to the entire port, but his own part also seemed a little questionable - he didn’t even speak the local language! What if someone spotted him, and came up to talk to him?

“Calm down, Bartowski,” Casey whispered next to him. “Stick to the plan and things will work out.”

“Really? You’re not just trying to calm me down?” Chuck replied. In his experience, plans tended to run into problems and needed adjustment in mid-execution.

“Do you really want me to answer that?” The agent’s grin told Chuck that the answer to that question was ‘no’.

He looked away, focusing on the part of the harbour he could see from his spot instead. If he craned his neck a little, he could see their own yacht, still swinging at anchor. As far as they knew, no one had boarded it so far. He pressed his lips together. Compared to his part in the plan, Sarah and Caridad’s parts were far more dangerous.

“They’ll be fine,” Casey whispered - or growled at low volume - as if he had read Chuck’s thoughts. “They know what they are doing. Well, Walker knows.”

Chuck wondered if being hurt made Casey more sociable. Or whether the man was simply managing a potential weakness of his team. “I’m just worried. What if they have miscalculated? What if the guards anticipated their plan? What if…”

A far louder explosion than he had expected cut him off.

“That’s our cue!” Casey snapped. “Move! And leave the talking to me!”

They rushed out of the alley, on to the next pier, into the midst of the crowd staring at the remains of their yacht, which had just been turned into a spectacular fireball. Casey was pushing through the throng, shoving people away with enough force to make them stumble and, in one case, fall, towards the small dinghy that had been tied up at the pier here, guarded by two of Sanchez’s men.

They were staring at the wreckage as well, but Chuck saw how one of them noticed Casey and Chuck approaching and hit the other in the shoulder. Damn.

Casey yelled something in Spanish - presumably that he was commandeering their boat to search for survivors; at least, that was the plan. 

It was obvious, though, that the men didn’t want to hand their boat over. One angrily gestured as he spoke, the other put a hand on his belt, close to his barely-concealed holster.

Casey hit the first with a strike to his chin, knocking him into the second. Chuck rushed forward, wincing at the pain that caused, and drew his baton, but, despite his injuries, Casey was quicker and took the second out with a kick to his knee, followed by a kick to his temple as the man collapsed, then subdued the first with a chokehold from behind.

Chuck half-twirled his baton, trying to look like he had intended that, and went to board the boat. He could do that, at least.

*****

Even in the water, and on the other side of Sanchez’s ship, Sarah had felt the yacht blowing up. It was a little disorienting, but she had expected that - and she had a job to do. Kicking her legs, she broke the surface and quickly swam to the rear of the yacht, where the ladder let swimmers climb in. Before she reached it, she saw Caridad grab it, then push off the ship’s side with both legs and vault on top of the deck. Suppressing a familiar envy, Sarah quickly climbed up herself after kicking off her fins.

Two guards were on the floor there, knocked out. “Worked like a charm,” the Slayer whispered as Sarah dropped her air tank and slid the diving mask up her forehead. “They were staring at the explosion when I came up behind them!”

Sarah nodded. It had been her plan, after all. “Let’s go!” she whispered.

Caridad took the lead as they climbed up to the bridge. A guard there noticed them, but too late - before he could cry out, Caridad’s punch robbed him of breath, followed by a quick jab to the temple that knocked him out while Sarah grabbed the other man on the bridge in a chokehold from behind. The man struggled but soon fell unconscious. Four down. Two more at the pier, whom Casey and Chuck would be dealing with, made six. That left about half a dozen more.

“Overwatch here. No one else on deck,” Grimes’s voice rang out in Sarah’s ear. Grimes was on the roof of a building on the other end of the harbour, acting as a spotter for Bane, who had their best rifle - it wasn’t as if the man could do anything else with his sprained ankle.

“Copy,” Sarah replied. 

“I heard,” Caridad whispered, then slid down the ladder leading inside the ship. Sarah followed her example - they were on a timer and had a cursed dagger to recover. And, probably, a drug lord to deal with.

*****

Navigating their way through the burning wreckage left by the bomb that Sarah had planted was a little harder than Chuck had expected. It wasn’t as if their zodiac would sink as soon as it hit something, but he’d still rather avoid hitting anything in the first place. 

And he couldn’t help glancing at Sanchez’s yacht, even though Casey was keeping an eye on it. Sarah and Caridad had disappeared inside, and who knew what was awaiting them? Not Chuck, of course.

They could handle it. Sarah was an experienced spy, and Caridad was a veteran Slayer. They were up against half a dozen guards and a drug lord, and they had the element of surprise. Easy.

If only he believed it. He gritted his teeth as he manoeuvred around the remains of the yacht’s bow, trying to appear as if they were looking for survivors. Dozens, if not hundreds, were staring at them now, after all, so they had to play their role. The plan depended on it.

“Stick to the plan...” he whispered to himself. No matter how hard it was. Even though he really wished he could have been with Sarah.

*****

Caridad was moving through the yacht’s interior as if she were on rails, barely giving some rooms a glance as she descended another set of stairs in one leap. Sarah hoped the Slayer was following a scent - or sense, as Chuck had called it - and not just developing tunnel vision. It wasn’t as if she could do anything but stick to the woman - splitting up would have been foolish, and she couldn’t stop the Slayer.

Another guard stepped in their way, gun rising. Caridad ploughed into him, smashing the man into the wall with enough force to break a few ribs and crack the wooden panels. But there was a second guard, to the side, who yelled a warning before Sarah could shoot him with her silenced pistol. She cursed under her breath - they had lost the element of surprise.

“No sweat!” Caridad announced with a fierce grin as she rose. “We’re close! I can feel the thing!”

Before Sarah could reply, she turned to face the wall to the side, then ran straight at it. The wood splintered under the impact, and the Slayer disappeared through the hole. Sarah pursed her lips and followed, stopping at the opening.

Behind it, Caridad was already fighting Sanchez in a lavishly furnished bedroom. Or, rather, the Slayer was fighting a possessed man - the cartel leader was screaming in a language Sarah hadn’t heard before and wielding the dagger with more speed - and force, Sarah added as she saw him cut a chair in half with a single swipe that had missed Caridad - than was possible for a human.

She moved a little to the side, avoiding the splintered wood that lined the hole, but Sanchez and Caridad were too close and too quick for her to take a shot.

The sound of steps on the stairs made her turn around - Sanchez’s guards were on the way. And she was in the middle of a hallway with no cover! 

Clenching her teeth, she slid through the hole, trusting her diving suit to withstand the ragged edges, and crouched down. She shot the first guard on the stairs before he set foot in the hallway, but there were more behind him. And while they wouldn’t brave the stairs and hallway without cover, Sarah and Caridad wouldn’t be able to escape through that route either.

She glanced to her side. Caridad broke another expensive-looking antique chair on Sanchez’s head, although it didn’t seem to faze the possessed man. But he moved back a little to avoid the next swing, and Sarah used the opportunity to put a bullet in his leg.

As the drug lord stumbled, Caridad dashed forward, blade flashing - and Sarah winced as a hand holding a knife went flying in a spurt of blood, followed by Sanchez screaming - until a kick to the head shut him up.

“Couldn’t kick it out of his hand, was like glued,” the Slayer explained. “Don’t touch it!”

Sarah hadn’t planned on touching it. She was back to watching the hallway. The guards had to hear the screaming as well, which meant… Yes, another attempt to rush them. She shot the first man down, but the second started hosing down the hallway with a submachine gun, and Sarah had to dive to the side to avoid the bullets - they were punching through the interior walls.

“We need to go!” she yelled as she rolled and came up in a crouch.

Caridad didn’t answer; the Slayer simply scooped up the dagger and hand with a plastic bag, then dashed over to the porthole above the remains of the bed. It was large enough to serve as an exit, but climbing through would take time they might not have.

Or so Sarah thought. Caridad apparently had other ideas since she ripped the porthole open, then grabbed Sarah and heaved, and Sarha found herself pushed through the porthole with enough force to fly two yards before she hit the water. She was still on the way back to the surface when another body - Caridad - hit the water next to her. And Sarah hadn’t been able to inform the others.

*****

“Two in the water,” Bane reported.

Chuck was already turning the boat towards the yacht when Casey asked: “Ours or theirs?”

“Couldn’t tell.”

Chuck remembered to use callsigns. “Striker? Striker?”

“We’re in the water, need pickup,” Sarah’s voice answered.

Chuck gunned the engine, turning so tightly, he heard Casey curse as the man had to sit down to avoid falling overboard. “Watch it!”

Chuck ignored the complaint and sped towards Sarah and Caridad. There! He could see them in the cone of light thrown by the open porthole… which was suddenly blocked. By a head.

And then unblocked by Casey shooting said head. 

Chuck winced. But he had to focus. If he mistimed this… He wet his lips as he cut the engine and let the boat drift to a stop. Yes, right next to the girls.

Casey pulled Sarah into the boat while Caridad leapt out of the water into the zodiac, and Chuck gunned the engine again, turning away from the yacht as they sped up. “Are you alright?” he yelled over the noise

“We’re OK,” Caridad answered.

“Two men on deck!” Morgan’s excited voice sounded through their comms. “They’ve got an RPG!”

Casey whirled, pushing past Chuck. “Evade!”

Chuck started weaving, the zodiac bumping against some wreckage in the process. Casey began to return fire, though, with the range opening, Chuck doubted that the man would hit anything with his pistol. Not from a moving boat.

But Bane was on a roof, with a rifle. “RPG neutralised,” she announced.

“The other is taking cover,” Morgan added.

No one else took a shot at them ut Chuck didn’t relax until they had left the harbour and turned to sail towards the rally spot, where they’d pick up Morgan and Bane.

Before they’d finally leave the island.

*****


	21. The Stopover

**Haiti, Cap-Haïtien International Airport, January 7th, 2008**

He was just a tourist boarding a private jet. A rich tourist with a beautiful girlfriend and a bunch of friends who’d had a good time in Haiti and were now returning home. There was nothing suspicious at all going on here.

Chuck kept telling himself that as he walked towards the waiting plane - a Learjet 60SE which had been used last in Jordan to kidnap a Saudi-Arabian businessman suspected of supporting terrorists, the Intersect had informed him as soon as he had spotted it. Chuck really hoped that the CIA had thoroughly cleaned the blood from the floor.

And he really hoped he wouldn’t get hit by some sniper. Even though Casey, Sarah and Caridad had told him that no one had managed to follow them to this airport. He trusted them, but he couldn’t help feeling as if someone was aiming at him. Or at Sarah. At least, his muscles weren’t hurting as much any more.

But he reached the jet’s door without being shot, then entered it after Sarah. And sighed in relief as he sank into the first seat he saw.

“You know, any decent rifle will go through that window,” Casey remarked as he walked past Chuck.

“What?” Chuck jerked, then glared at the grinning spy. And then pouted when he saw Sarah’s smile.

“We’re safe,” she told him.

“I know. Reinforced windows, even.” He knocked on them - the Intersect had told him the specs. But he also knew that they wouldn’t stop an anti-material rifle. “It’s just…” He shrugged. So much could still go wrong. Like someone shooting the tires of the jet when it was about to take off.

“Relax,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “We’ll be in Jamaica soon enough. Where we will have to maintain our cover for a few more days.”

“Five more days of vacation!” Caridad cheered from behind them. Slayer hearing, again.

Not that Chuck paid much attention - five days staying at a resort, enjoying the beach and pool, with Sarah… He smiled.

“We have to deal with the dagger and gris-gris, though,” Morgan pointed out.

“And the blood sample needs to be transported to a lab,” Bane added. “The cooler won’t keep forever.”

“You can extract DNA for testing from dry blood, though,” Chuck told her. “So, that’s not exactly urgent.” And the more the sample decayed, the less dangerous information would the CIA acquire from it.

“We can call a courier from London for the gris-gris and the dagger,” Caridad said, tapping her foot against the backpack on the floor in which said artefacts were currently stored. “That way, we can maintain our cover,” she added with a wide, toothy grin.

“Right!” Morgan cut in. “The Council will be glad to take them off our hands.”

“And return them to their legal owners?” Bane asked, with more than a trace of sarcasm.

“Yes,” Caridad said with a smile.

“Eventually,” Morgan added. “After thoroughly examining them - they could be fakes, after all.”

“The Intersect identified them, didn’t it?” Bane retorted.

“That’s only as reliable as the CIA’s information,” Chuck pointed out.

“It’s supposed to cross-correlate so much information, forgeries and fakes will be found,” Bane said.

“Trust, but verify?” Chuck tried.

Bane didn’t look as if she were buying it.

Their troubles never seemed to end.

*****

**Jamaica, Montego Bay, Sandals Montego Bay, January 7th, 2008**

“A couple’s resort.” Chuck smiled as he took in their - his and Sarah’s - room. “The CIA has style.”

“I actually used a favour,” Sarah told him as she turned away from the walk-in closet where she had just stashed their suitcases. “I requested this resort.”

“Oh?”

“It came heavily recommended. For honeymoons.”

“Oh.” His smile widened to match hers. Then he had a thought. “Uh… what about Caridad and Casey?”

“They’ve got separate beds. They’ll manage. They did so on the yacht.”

“With ill grace,” he pointed out.

“They’ll need to work through this,” she said. “And it’s better they work through this now, that we’re done with the mission and out of danger, than next time we have to work together.”

That made sense. A little ruthless, but logical. He nodded. “I can see that.”

“Good.” She flashed an impish smile at him and slowly walked towards him, hips swaying. “I intend to give my all to maintain our cover identity, Mr Smith,” she breathed more than she said as she let the robe she had been wearing after her shower fall down to the floor at her feet.

He swallowed. “So do I, Mrs Smith,” he managed to say without blushing. Not too much, at least.

She reached him, craning her head slightly as she looked up at him, and he saw the tip of her tongue brush over her lips.

He drew a deep breath, smelling her, and swallowed again. Oh, yes…

Someone knocked on the door. He glanced at it as Sarah hissed: “We’re not to be disturbed.”

“Chuck?”

Morgan. Oh no.

“We’re busy,” Sarah snapped.

“We need to talk. It’s important. Really important. And I don’t have much time.”

Sarah’s expression almost Chuck wince. But he pulled himself together. “I’m sure it’s very important.” It better had to be, or he would have words with Morgan. Best friends or not.

She glared at him, then turned and picked up her robe.

He took that to mean that she agreed with letting Morgan come in. Once she was dressed again, of course.

*****

Sarah clenched her teeth while she closed her robe. Of all the times to disturb them, Grimes just had to pick now! If this wasn’t an emergency…

But Chuck was already at the door, glancing over his shoulder to check if she was decent, so she flashed an obviously forced smile at him, showing her teeth.

He coughed, then opened the door.

“Chuck! Sarah!” Grimes said as he limped inside. “Good thing I caught you before you went out or something!” 

Sarah wanted to wipe his smile off his face. “Yes, a very good thing,” she said as she sat down on the bed and crossed her legs.”

“Oh…” Grimes blinked. “I didn’t disturb you when you were in the shower, did I?”

Chuck coughed again. “Uh, no, no. No one was in the shower.” He sat down next to her and wrapped his arm around her waist. Sarah leaned into him.

“Good.” Grimes nodded, apparently not catching any hint no matter how obvious. “Kirsten’s out getting her hair fixed, so I decided to use the opportunity to come and talk to you without her knowing about it.”

Sarah nodded. At least now they knew that Grimes hadn’t fallen for the spy’s charms and lost all reason. “Unless she bugged you,” she had to point out, though.

“Err…” Grimes blinked again.

Chuck was already getting the scanner out. “Looks clean,” he said after a few seconds.

His friend sighed with apparent relief. “Good, good.” He cleared his throat. “Now, the thing I need to talk to you about…”

“Yes?” Chuck asked after a moment.

Grimes cleared his throat again. “I think we need to tell her - Kirsten, I mean - the truth. About the demons, and stuff.”

No, Sarah _had_ been mistaken. Grimes had lost all reason due to the other spy’s charms.

“What?” Chuck blurted out. “Morgan! You know she’s a spy for the CIA!”

Sarah nodded in agreement. “And a spy with a very specific skill set,” she added.

“I know that,” Grimes claimed. “But we have to tell her before she gets the CIA to start trying to duplicate the ‘mind control technique’ Lindor used. Unless she knows the truth, she won’t realise how dangerous it is. And they might stumble on magic in the process. You don’t want the CIA dabbling in dark magic, do you?”

No, Sarah didn’t want that. But telling Bane wouldn’t prevent that. “Even telling her might not stop her, or convince her to keep quiet,” she said. After all, Sarah knew Bane’s type. “It might just let her know what they need to do - and that they need to keep their work top secret.”

“But we can have Willow keep an eye on the CIA. Well, more of an eye she already is keeping on them. And your dad is watching them, too,” he told Chuck.

“Then we can nip any attempt to work with magic in the bud,” Sarah said.

“Uh… but she could think that you and Casey were mind-controlled,” Chuck pointed out.

“And she already asked me about Chuck’s sudden skills with a gun,” Grimes added. “I don’t think they told her everything about the Intersect.”

“They don’t trust her.” And with good reason, Sarah thought.

“That means she might be willing to trust us - if we show some trust, too. Not without keeping an eye on her, of course,” Grimes said. 

Which wasn’t really showing any trust, of course. “She’s been trained to fool people and gain their confidence. It’s what she does,” Sarah pointed out.

“But she does that anyway, doesn’t she?” Grimes looked at Sarah, then at Chuck. “And she’s seen too much on this trip. The demons, the zombies, the Vodouist… she’ll figure out something; she isn’t stupid.”

Sarah was aware of that better than anyone else present - as an attractive blonde woman, she had pulled off similar missions as Bane had, if not as often as the other spy. But to tell the woman… and in the middle of their ‘vacation’? She shook her head, then glanced at Chuck.

He had that ‘deeply focused’ expression on his face. “I think you’ve got a point, Morgan,” he said. Sarah struggled not to sigh. “She’s trained to find out secrets, so she’ll investigate. And we can’t explain everything.” He looked at Sarah and smiled lopsidedly. “I think we should tell her the truth. It’s the best way to deal with this.”

Well, apart from Bane having an accident - but the CIA would never believe that. Not even if really were an accident. 

Sarah really didn’t like this. She gritted her teeth as Chuck pulled her against him, then sighed. “Alright. But we can’t organise a demonstration while we’re here.” She wouldn’t let this ruin their vacation.

“Actually, we might be able to,” Grimes said. “One of the past Slayers was born in Jamaica, and I think her Watcher retired here. We could contact him for help and see if Caridad can find a vampire on the island!”

She glared at him until he paled and stopped talking. Which took about a second.

*****

Chuck cleared his throat to break the sudden tension - well, Sarah was tense; he could feel it with her arm around her waist, while Morgan was nervous. More nervous than he had been when he started this discussion. “Uh… so, we’re in agreement about telling her. What about Casey and Caridad?”

“Caridad is guarding the dagger and gris-gris,” Morgan said. “The Council’s courier should arrive tomorrow to take them off our hands.”

“Not quite what I meant,” Chuck said. “What does she think about this? And should we ask Casey?” Technically, it wasn’t his secret to tell, but… they were a team, weren’t they?

“Err…”

Morgan hadn’t asked her, then. “We should talk to her as well. I think.” That’s what Chuck had done before telling Sarah the truth.

“We need to do that anyway, since she has to arrange the demonstration,” Morgan said.

“It’s a bit more polite to ask her opinion, rather than to ask her to help us after we’ve already made our decision,” Sarah pointed out.

“And this demonstration needs to be very impressive,” Chuck added. “So she won’t think demons can be handled.”

His friend nodded. “Too bad there’s no video from the Initiative. That would show her how dangerous demons are.”

“It might also make her think about using demons against the CIA’s enemies,” Chuck replied. No one needed the Initiative 2.0. As far as he knew, the Council already had to stomp out two similar projects in smaller countries.

“She’s too smart for that,” Morgan protested. Sarah snorted at that, and Chuck’s friend frowned at her. “She is. Really.”

Yes, Morgan had a crush. Possibly more, Chuck thought. Well, he had expected that. Beautiful femmes fatales were Morgan’s kryptonite. 

His own as well, he added in his head and pulled Sarah a little closer. “So, uh… what about Casey?”

“We’ll have to get his input as well,” Sarah said. “He might have alternatives we didn’t think of.”

Like shooting her, Chuck thought, then realised this might turn out to be true - Casey tended to see mostly violent solutions to perceived problems.

“Err…” Morgan checked his watch. “Perhaps you talk to them? Kirsten won’t take too long at the hairdresser.”

And that way, Morgan wouldn’t have to weather Casey’s angry reaction - the man wouldn’t be in a good mood after rooming with Caridad. But it was a sound argument, so Chuck nodded. “Alright.”

Sarah sighed. “Then let us get dressed.”

“Err… sure, sure.” Morgan quickly left their room.

“Sorry,” Chuck told her.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said as she stood up.

“He means well.” Morgan really did. “And I don’t think that he realised that he interrupted us, uh…”

She snorted. “He’s not the most perceptive.”

Chuck wanted to protest, but she was correct - his friend did tend to miss certain cues and hints when he was focused on something. Like the time he had interrupted Chuck’s attempt to get a date for the prom with his enthusiastic tale about finishing Final Fantasy Legend II. Well, more like wrecked. 

Then Sarah dropped her robe before she picked up a light summer dress and completely derailed his thoughts. 

*****

Casey was lying on his bed, reading a magazine - Guns & Ammo - when Sarah and Chuck entered their room. And Caridad was on her bed, sharpening a stake. Or whittling it down - it did seem to be significantly shorter than average, in Chuck’s impression. Both the agent and the Slayer were looking at them, and he couldn’t help thinking that the two were also making a point of not looking at each other. Perhaps they should have rented two rooms for them...

“Uh… something came up,” Chuck told them. “Something we need to discuss.”

“Yes?” Caridad asked, cocking her head and dropping the shortened stake on the bed.

He took a deep breath. “We think we need to tell Bane the truth about magic and demons.”

To his surprise, neither protested. Casey grunted in what sounded agreement, and Caridad scowled but nodded. “She saw too much,” the Slayer said.

“And we can’t disappear her without the CIA blaming us for it,” Casey added.

“Uh, yes.” Chuck nodded. Their quick acceptance had taken the wind out of his sails, so to speak. He had been prepared - psyched himself up - to argue the point. Not, he added to himself as he saw the two were now glaring at each other, to sort out their grudges. “So… should we do it here, or when we’re back home?”

“Here,” Casey answered at once. “Without a secure line of communication, she can’t report any details back to the CIA.”

Which meant they would be able to stop her from revealing what she had seen to the general. “We’ll need to arrange a demonstration, then,” Chuck said.

“No problem,” Caridad replied. “I can find a vamp and drag it to… well, some abandoned warehouse or so.”

“I think we need to plan a little bit for the ‘or so’ parts,” Sarah said. “Morgan mentioned that there was a retired Watcher living on the island.”

Caridad winced, which wasn’t a good sign, in Chuck’s opinion.

“Sam Zabuto, Kendra’s old Watcher,” she said.

“Kendra?” Sarah asked.

“The Slayer called between Buffy and Faith,” Caridad explained before Chuck could. “She was killed by Drusilla in Sunnydale in 1998.”

“Ah.” Chuck wasn’t sure if he had seen the Slayer. Hadn’t there been an attack on the library at the end of the year, or something?

“And that was Zabuto’s fault. The guy had sent her to help Buffy stopping an apocalypse, but didn’t come along to help her.” She scoffed. “He’s also a hardass old school Council Watcher - Kendra was raised by him like a robot. She wasn’t even allowed to talk to boys!”

Chuck hadn’t known that. 

“He retired after her death and just stuck to the island, as far as I know. Giles asked him to rejoin the Council after Sunnydale went down the sinkhole, but he told him to get lost.” She shrugged. “Not exactly the kind of person to ask for help with this.”

Ah. Chuck had been wondering why Morgan hadn’t known more about the local Watcher. “Still, it’s his home, and he probably wouldn’t appreciate it if we started to arrange a demonstration for Bane without his knowledge.”

“He wouldn’t appreciate it if he knew that a Slayer and a Watcher are here.” Caridad shook her head. “We don’t need him, either. I grab a vamp or demon, and we use an old warehouse to show Bane the truth.” She grinned. “Bet she wets herself.”

Hostility towards Bane seemed to be something both Sarah and Caridad shared, Chuck noticed. He shook his head. “We’re not exactly set up for that. We don’t know the locals, we don’t have contacts among the authorities, we don’t have a cage or other ways to keep a vampire prisoner, and we don’t know which warehouses, if any, could be used without alerting someone. I’d rather avoid causing more trouble.”

“I agree,” Sarah said. “We should at least contact the man before we start a mission here.”

“It’s always a bad idea to drop in a situation without local help and intel,” Casey added.

Caridad huffed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Chuck sighed as the Slayer frowned and glared at Casey as if he had attacked her. That wasn’t very professional; they had a cover to maintain, after all.

He knew better than to say that, of course.

*****

**Near Maroon Town, Jamaica, January 8th, 2008**

Travelling early in the morning into what looked like a hilly jungle wasn’t how Chuck had wanted to start his vacation. Well, technically, his vacation had started last night and had been perfect for the ‘couple on their honeymoon’ cover identities he and Sarah were using.

“I’m starting to have second thoughts,” he said to Sarah, who was driving their rental.

“Oh?”

He looked around. “Not about contacting Zabuto. But about not taking Caridad with us.”

“She’s meeting with the Council’s courier later in the morning,” Sarah pointed out. “And I don’t think Zabuto would be happy if we not only bring a Slayer along but also two evil artefacts.”

She didn’t stumble over the word ‘artefacts’ or otherwise sounded put off by its use, Chuck noticed. Ellie had taken years to stop frowning at having to use a ‘fantasy term’ when talking about demons and magic. “Good point,” he admitted. “But if things go wrong, having a Slayer with us would help a lot.”

“I don’t think that he’ll be stupid enough to start anything,” she replied. “We’re just paying him a courtesy visit so he doesn’t get blindsided.”

Chuck hoped that Zabuto shared Sarah’s views. 

A few minutes later, they entered Maroon Town, and Chuck pulled up the address they had been given, then checked it with the navigation system. “I think it’s that way.”

Sarah glanced at him as if she didn’t agree, but she turned and headed down the street he had pointed out.

As it turned out, he had been correct - well, mostly. They only had to back up once; apparently, the device’s software needed an update. But a few minutes later, they pulled up in front of an old but well-maintained house. Not a manor, but big enough for a larger family. An old but equally well-maintained Land Rover was parked in an open garage next to the house.

Zabuto obviously wasn’t hurting for money.

They parked a little to the side - on the road, not on the grounds - and got out. After the climatised car, the air felt hot and humid even though it was still a little early in the morning, but it was bearable. And they wouldn’t have to stay outside for long, or so Chuck hoped as they walked towards the house.

A tall, slightly stocky man was waiting for them on the porch. He was wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt and long white slacks with sandals. Chuck couldn’t see any weapons on him, but he wasn’t a trained spy, and the staff leaning against the wall next to him looked like a quarterstaff, not a cane.

“Mr Zabuto?” he asked.

“Who wants to know?” the man replied with a sneer.

Well, they were off to a good start. “I’m Chuck, Chuck Bartowski. This is Sarah Walker,” he said. “We’re friends of the Los Angeles Slayer.”

The man’s expression darkened further.

“I parted ways with the Council years ago,” he spat.

So, he was Zabuto. He hadn’t much of an accent, Chuck realised. But then, according to what he knew, the old Council had been very British and very conservative - any member probably spoke the Queen’s English.

“We know,” he said, smiling politely and, hopefully, charmingly. “We’re not Watchers.”

“Then who are you?” Zabuto’s eyes narrowed, and he shifted his weight a little.

“Uh, as I said, we’re friends with the Los Angeles Slayer.” Should he mention that he was friends with most of the new Council? Probably not.

“This is Jamaica, not Los Angeles.”

“Yes, of course it is,” Chuck agreed. “We’re just visiting.”

“Visiting.”

Chuck nodded. “Yes. A vacation. In the Caribbean.”

“Really.” Zabuto didn’t believe him, that much was obvious. Even though Chuck was telling the truth - at least in Jamaica, they were on vacation.

“Yes, really. But something came up - not here, but before we arrived here. And now, well…” He cleared his throat. “We didn’t want to hunt on your turf without informing you.”

“My ‘turf’?” Zabuto glared at him. “What do you think I am? A gangster?”

“A retired Watcher?” Chuck felt his smile slip seeing the scowl his comment had caused to appear on the other man’s face.

“Sir, we’re here so we can avoid causing trouble for you out of ignorance,” Sarah cut in. “Some demons might blame you for the actions of a Slayer.”

Zabuto scoffed. “I haven’t been hunting vampires since Kendra’s death - in California.”

“Ah.” Chuck blinked. He better not mention that he was from Sunnydale, then. Although... If Zabuto hadn’t been hunting vampires, then who had? If no one had culled their numbers, could they have… “Do you know anything about the local, uh, demon scene?”

“This isn’t a big city. There is no demon scene - just the occasional vampire.”

“If you’re not dealing with them, then who does?” Sarah asked.

“There are a few local fools who hunt the undead, despite my advice.”

“Ah. Do you have their number? We want to avoid a misunderstanding. It wouldn’t do if they mistook us for enemies,” Chuck said, then cringed at the sudden, naked rage on Zabuto’s face.

But it seemed Zabuto managed to control himself. “Ask for Jim in the ‘Pirate’s Eye Bar’. Now get off my property!”

“Thank you, sir,” Chuck managed to say before they left the premises.

He sighed with relief once they were back in their car. He was sweating, he noticed - and he didn’t think that was purely because of the weather. “That could’ve gone better.”

“We got what we wanted,” Sarah said. “Mission accomplished.”

“He was more hostile than I expected. It’s a good thing we didn’t take Morgan or Caridad, I think.”

“Yes,” Sarah agreed. “Though he knew who was hunting vampires, even though he claimed that he wasn’t involved with it.”

“He probably was approached by them,” Chuck guessed.

“Perhaps.” Sarah didn’t seem to think that was the explanation. But then, she was a trained spy - she would suspect ulterior motives and lies, wouldn’t she?

“Well, we’ll find out, I guess, once we visit the bar,” Chuck said.

And wondered, privately, if he should be a little more suspicious of others as well.

*****

**Jamaica, Montego Bay, January 8th, 2008**

Trying out a shirt in front of the mirror in the hotel room, Chuck paused for a moment and craned his neck to check out his back. Did it look a little redder than it should? He had used sunscreen, but he had also gone swimming several times - they had spent the afternoon at the beach - and he might not have been as diligent as he should have been in reapplying it. Well, not to himself, he thought with a silly grin.

“Here.” Sarah interrupted his thoughts and handed him a navy blue polo shirt.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Doesn’t it clash with the slacks?” There was a reason he wore mainly white shirts and black slacks when he was dressing up, and it wasn’t because it was the Buy More Nerd Herd uniform.

“No, it doesn’t,” she replied with a grin. “We don’t want the demon hunters to think we’re British, are we?”

He chuckled at that. No, after the talk with Zabuto, they didn’t want to be mistaken for British Watchers. “Well, he doesn’t seem to be fond of American expats, either,” he pointed out.

“That might be due to his Slayer dying where Buffy and her Watcher survived,” Sarah said.

Could Zabuto be so petty? It was possible, Chuck decided. The man certainly seemed to be holding and extending grudges. But he thought there was a little more behind it. “Well, there won’t be any Watcher, British or American,” he replied. Morgan was still on crutches, and that would be a handicap if they had to run. Not to mention that Morgan tended to make a bad first impression, a less than loyal part of him added.

“Nor Bane,” Sarah added with a nod as he slipped the polo shirt on. “Let’s go before we make the others wait.”

It was a little too late for that, Chuck discovered as they reached the lobby - Caridad and Casey were already there, sitting as far from each other as one could and still be considered together. They certainly weren’t maintaining their cover as a couple as well as Chuck and Sarah did. “Hey, guys!” Chuck greeted them. “Ready for a night in town?”

Casey glared at him as he stood up, and Caridad huffed.

They could use some work on maintaining their cover as tourists as well, Chuck thought.

*****

Contrary to Sarah’s expectations, the ‘Pirate’s Eye Bar’ didn’t look like a tourist trap. There were no fake historical pirate decorations, the waiters and waitresses weren’t wearing pirate costumes straight from the Halloween discount bin, and the prices were a far cry from the ones in the hotel bar.

The music filling the bar, though, conformed to stereotypes - Bob Marley, loud enough to make conversation without raising your voice difficult. And there certainly were tourists among the patrons. And the bouncer at the door ogled both her and Caridad and missed the pistols and other weapons the group had spread out between the four of them.

All in all, nothing really surprising.

There wasn’t a free table - they were a little too late, it seems - but that wasn’t a problem. She went straight for the bar, Chuck at her side, with Casey, who’d had insisted that he was fine, as well as Caridad trailing behind them. Good. Sarah preferred to make contact herself.

She leaned against the bar and flashed her credit card to the bartender, then pointed at the price list and ordered four drinks. And when the young man put them down in front of her - he had mixed them with decent speed and skill, in her opinion - she added a generous tip, then bent towards him, so she didn’t have to yell. “We’d like to talk to Jim.”

He stiffened, and she caught him checking out the entire group instead of staring at her and Caridad’s cleavage, as he had done before. And looking at the mirror behind him, to see if they had a reflection she supposed. “Zabuto sent us,” she added.

He nodded, though he still seemed a little reluctant. “Wait here,” he replied, then turned and headed through a door behind him without waiting for an answer. She turned. Chuck had been almost hanging over her shoulder, so he had caught the exchange. Slayer hearing would have let Caridad overhear them from across the room. And Casey knew how such things went, so they sipped from their drinks and waited.

A minute later, the bartender returned, followed by a guy that would have fit among the waiters in the bar without any trouble. Young, tall and athletic without looking like a steroid abuser. He looked like a local, too. “I’m Jim,” he said, then nodded towards the door behind the bar. “Let’s talk there.”

Not the most subtle approach, but perhaps an observer would assume that they were tourists looking for weed. And Caridad didn’t seem to have detected any demons nearby. So Sarah nodded, and they followed the man.

The door led into a hallway with three doors - two leading to rooms, one out back - and stairs at the end. Jim picked the second room, which turned out to be an office filled with a desk and several mismatched chairs and filing cabinets. Jim took a seat behind the desk, then stared at Caridad. “You’re the slayer,” he said with a heavy Jamaican accent.

So, he had called Zabuto. Or Zabuto had informed him in advance.

Caridad nodded with a cocky grin. “Los Angeles’s Slayer, at your service.”

“And he’s your Watcher,” Jim added with a nod towards Casey.

Caridad scowled at once. “No. My Watcher’s not here.”

“Oh. Sorry.” The man sounded honestly sorry, even.

“He’s in L.A., not dead,” she explained.

“Ah.” He nodded in a curt manner. “And what do you want here?”

If he had spoken to Zabuto, he would know. But he might want to check for discrepancies - if he were a trained operative. Which Sarah doubted. He was too young, for one. And he wasn’t smooth enough, either.

“We need a vampire or demon for a demonstration,” Caridad said, flashing her teeth.

Jim frowned. “A demonstration?”

“Yes. To prove that vampires exist,” Caridad went on.

Now the man knew that they had someone with them - or knew someone on the island - who didn’t believe in vampires. And that they needed to prove that demons were real. The Slayer was revealing intel that Sarah would have preferred to remain a secret.

“If too many know about magic, the world’s gonna end,” Jim replied.

So, Zabuto had told them about the Old Ones. Well, he would, of course.

“Yes,” Caridad said, rolling her eyes. “But sometimes, people are about to discover the truth anyway, and you don’t want them to stumble into a demon lair while they do it.”

“I don’t think that Zabuto approached you out of the blue to inform you about vampires, did he?” Sarah interjected.

“No, he didn’t,” Jim admitted. “We met…” He trailed off. 

Sarah nodded. He had better instincts than the Slayer but he was still not a trained spy. “We don’t want to cause trouble for you by unknowingly interfering with your plans,” she told him.

“And would you knowingly interfere?” Jim narrowed his eyes at them. Sarah adjusted her estimate of his age downward; that had sounded like a teenager.

“Only if you’re messing with stuff you shouldn’t be messing with, or screw up,” Caridad said with a toothy smile.

“You think you’re hot stuff, do you?” Jim retorted, baring his own teeth.

“I’m the Slayer,” she replied, taking a step forward and placing both hands on the desk as she leaned forward.

Sarah sighed inwardly. Caridad just couldn’t resist a challenge, could she? “We’re not here to mess with you or take over. Something came up during a vacation,” she said.

Jim scoffed. “That figures. Of course you don’t care about us. The only reason there ever was a Slayer here was because she was born in Jamaica.”

Was that what Zabuto had told them?

“That’s not exactly fair,” Chuck cut in. “The Council has to cover the entire world, and there was only one Slayer until recently. And the Slayer was needed on the Hellmouth to prevent apocalypses.”

“Kendra died there!” Jim spat.

“Did you know her?” Chuck asked. 

“She saved my life. And then she went and got killed in California. On your orders.”

Ah. Sarah slowly nodded. That explained a few things. How Jim knew about vampires, his relationship to Zabuto and his view of the Council.

“We’re not the Council,” Chuck said. “We’re just friends with Caridad.” He smiled. “We help her out when things get tough.”

Caridad, to Sarah’s mild surprise, didn’t proclaim that she didn’t need help. Instead, the Slayer said: “Kendra died following the orders of the old Council. Things changed since then. They’re gone, and we’re in charge.”

Jim scoffed in response. “Of course you’d claim that. But nothing changed _here_.” 

“Hey! Zabuto could’ve joined the new Council!” Caridad replied. “He didn’t want to, so don’t blame that on us!”

“I thought you weren’t the Council,” Jim told her with a sneer. Definitely a teenager, Sarah thought.

“They aren’t. I’m a Slayer, duh, so of course I’m part of it!” Caridad returned the sneer and Sarah thought she heard that the desk the Slayer was gripping creak.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Chuck stepped forward. If the desk weren’t in the way, he probably would have stepped between the two. “Let’s calm down, OK? All we’re here for is to find out if we mess up things for you if we hunt a vampire.”

“Or more! Not that you could stop us, anyway!” Caridad wasn’t helping.

“Stop bickering like little kids over the last slice of cake! There are enough vampires for everyone.” Casey spoke up for the first time, but his contribution wasn’t particularly helpful either.

Sarah saw that Chuck glared at both the agent and the Slayer, then turn to Jim again. “Please. We really only came here to check so we wouldn’t make trouble for you by hunting vampires. So, if you’d point us to a place where vampires usually hunt...?” His smile looked a little forced, Sarah noted, but he was honestly trying.

Jim was still scowling, clenching his teeth for a moment, but at least he didn’t pout. “The bloodsuckers like the Buccaneer Bar because the owner doesn’t like us.”

“Thank you!” Chuck beamed at the other man.

Sarah glanced at Casey. The agent met her eyes and nodded.

So he was suspicious of Jim’s motives as well.

*****

“That could’ve gone better,” Chuck said as soon as they had left the bar. “But at least we got what we wanted.” And, as Sarah had taught him, that was what counted when you were on a mission.

“It’s a trap,” Casey replied.

“What?” A trap?

“You heard the kid,” Casey snorted. “The bar owner doesn’t like them. He either wants to use us to bump off a rival or get payback, or he thinks we can’t deal with someone too strong for him. Either way, he wins.”

That made no sense. Chuck shook his head. “You make it sound as if Jim’s a gang boss.” The kid was too young for that. “I didn’t flash on him.”

“The CIA probably didn’t have any information on him,” the other man replied. “Or he started only recently. But I know his type. He felt disrespected and wants payback for his hurt ego.”

“I don’t think Zabuto would be working with a gang boss. Or sending us to them,” Chuck said. He looked at Sarah for support.

But she apparently didn’t agree with him. “He wasn’t very cooperative,” she said.

“Wounded pride,” Caridad chimed in. “That’s why a number of old crotchety Watcher types didn’t join Giles - they are too proud to take orders from a bunch of Americans and a Watcher who was fired.”

That was… Chuck shook his head. Why couldn’t people work together? Demons were a threat to everyone! “So, what do we do?”

Caridad grinned. “We’ll go to the Buccaneer Bar, of course!”

Chuck really should have expected that answer.

*****


	22. The Demonstration

**Jamaica, Montego Bay, January 8th, 2008**

The Buccaneer Bar was a stark contrast to the Pirate’s Eye Bar. A blinking neon sign hung over the entrance, but the interior was far darker, the music louder, and the decor more garish. And the bouncer looked as if he had been brought up on a strict diet of steroids, in Chuck’s opinion. Or, he added to himself as he noticed Caridad’s scowl, probably whatever demons ate to grow up.

“Vampire?” he whispered?

“Not human,” she whispered back.

Chuck didn’t think Zabuto would have let a vampire work as a bouncer. Unless he had gone off the deep end. But even a demon bouncer was bad news. Usually. On the other hand, not every demon was a threat to humans. Just the vast majority of them. And bouncer was an often violent profession. Although most demons would be unlikely to control themselves in such a position, and that would have caused trouble with the authorities, so perhaps this bouncer could control himself…

“Keep on your guard,” Sarah said, “but don’t start anything. Not yet.”

Casey grunted in apparent agreement, and Caridad scoffed but didn’t disagree. Chuck had no intention of starting anything anyway. There were too many civilians - it looked like the bar was a tourist trap. Possibly literally, he added with a shudder.

“We just walk in? And if they try something, we take them down, hard?” Casey asked.

“Yes,” Caridad replied.

The agent nodded. “Fine by me.” 

Chuck exchanged a glance with Sarah, then they were off towards the bar. Chuck couldn’t help feeling like John Wayne crossing the street to enter a saloon where the black hats were hanging out. Well, not John Wayne - probably his young sidekick. Not Sinatra, though.

The bouncer looked them over, but nodded - apparently, their tourist disguises worked. Though the man’s toothy grin… well, perhaps he had mistaken Caridad’s stare for interest. Of the wrong kind.

Inside, the music - quite generic hits, from what Chuck could tell - made conversation difficult. And the packed dance floor combined with the dim lighting made for ideal hunting grounds for vampires and other demons. At least the tribal mask from West Africa didn’t seem to be a cheap copy. He looked at Caridad, who was scowling as she glanced around. “More threats?”

“Don’t know. But I don’t like it. Something’s wrong.”

They skirted the dance floor and reached the bar. Chuck whistled at the prices listed. Tourist trap, indeed - these prices would have been outrageous even in Downtown Los Angeles. Or in Las Vegas.

Yet the bar was busy. Three bartenders barely kept up with the orders. And the drinks listed below the tribal mask did seem appealing. Yes, they should try out one. Or more. If people paid that much, the drinks had to be worth it… “I think I’ll take a Bloody Mary,” he said, picking a drink at random.

“Screwdriver for me,” Casey said.

“Cosmopolitan,” Sarah added.

“Damn! It’s a spell!” Caridad exclaimed. “You’re under a spell!”

“What?” That was stupid. Chuck wasn’t under a spell. He just wanted to buy a good drink. He could afford it, anyway, so why not? He was on vacation, after all! Time to indulge!

“You’re under a spell!” Caridad repeated. “Everyone here is!”

“That would mean you were under a spell as well,” Chuck pointed out. “But you’re the one claiming we’re under a spell.”

“Because I am the Slayer. And you are under a spell!”

“No, we aren’t,” Casey grumbled. “We just want to get a drink or two.”

“And if you continue making a scene, we won’t get a drink,” Chuck told her. “Because they’ll throw us out.”

He saw Caridad flash her teeth in a vicious smile a moment before she pushed him with enough force to make him fall on the table behind them. Then she picked up a chair as screaming tourists scattered and threw it at the tribal mask, breaking it.

Chuck was blinking. Why had he wanted to buy an overpriced drink? And a Bloody Mary - he didn’t like tomato juice _or_ vodka! “Oh my God!” he exclaimed. “We were under a spell!”

And, as he realised, they were now the centre of attention in the bar. Damn!

The demon-bouncer was wading through the patrons backing off - and fleeing - from the brewing fight, coming towards them, and two more bulky men were on the way from behind the bar. Caridad broke off two table legs and swung them around in a flashy move, grinning in anticipation.

And Casey and Sarah had drawn their guns - which caused even the drunk tourists - and there were a lot of them - to start running. And screaming.

In less than a minute, the bar was empty but for the staff, Chuck’s group, and half a dozen people who had apparently drunk themselves into a stupor.

“So, who wants to get slayed first?” Caridad snarled with a feral grin. 

But before the demons could charge - or Caridad pick a target - a voice interrupted them.

“What’s going on here?”

A woman stood there, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and decked out in jewellery. Glowing jewellery. 

“She’s a witch,” Caridad confirmed Chuck’s guess.

“Who are you and why are you attacking me?”

“We didn’t attack you; you attacked us,” Caridad spat. “You charmed my friends! And you consort with demons!”

“What?” The woman - the witch - narrowed her eyes. “I don’t _consort_ with demons!”

Chuck cleared his throat. “Uh… She didn’t mean it that way, I think. But we were affected by the spell on the mask.”

“Mind-controlled into buying drinks,” Casey spat.

“Yeah!” Caridad yelled. “And that’s an attack!”

“You’re a Slayer,” the witch stated. But she was glancing around, Chuck noticed. Probably estimating her odds.

“You bet your ass I am!” Caridad said. “And you’re going down!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Chuck stepped up. “Hold it - please.” He wasn’t very keen on fighting a witch. He didn’t want to be turned into a rat. Or see any of his friends suffer that fate. “We didn’t come here to fight you,” he told the witch.

“Really.” The witch didn’t sound as if she believed them. But she didn’t seem to be as confident any more. And neither did the demons.

“We came to fight vampires!” Caridad said. “But I’ll take other demons as well!”

“We don’t tolerate vampires in my bar,” the woman replied.

“Because you want all the spelt tourists for yourself!” Caridad retorted.

Damn. The Slayer looked like she was spoiling for a fight. Well, more than usual. Chuck licked his lips. “Uh… I have to say, using magic to sell drinks is a little…cheating?” he shrugged.

“It’s an effective form of advertising. People come here to drink and dance. I merely encourage their intentions.” 

“Bullshit!” Casey snapped. “I didn’t come here to have a drink.”

“Why then did you come?”

Chuck looked around. They were still caught between the bouncer behind them, and two demons and the witch in front of them. Not great odds, but not too bad either. But he didn’t really want to fight.

“We were told this bar was a hunting ground for vampires,” Sarah told the woman, speaking up for the first time.

“What? Who said… Dixon!” The woman shook her head. “I bet it was him.”

“Jim Dixon?” Chuck checked.

“Yes. I taught him a lesson, and he carries a grudge.”

“A lesson?” Chuck repeated.

“That his gang better leave me and mine alone.” She bared her teeth as she spoke.

Ah. That would fit Casey’s theory. On the other hand, the witch was putting the mind-whammy on tourists and employed demons. Or half-demons. Not exactly the deeds of a pillar of the local community. Well, mostly the spells. Not all demons were bad, after all. And, well, tourists had to expect to get fleeced, didn’t they? “And you don’t let vampires into the bar?”

“I like repeat customers,” she said.

“Charmed to return?” Sarah asked in a flat tone. 

Uh oh. She was madder than Chuck had expected. Of course - this had been the first time she had been affected by a mind-controlling spell!

“No need. People like what my bar has to offer.”

Caridad scoffed. “You mean they think the drinks are worth the money thanks to your spell, and so they keep coming back!”

The witch spread her hands with a grin. “Just trying to earn my share of the tourist money.”

Chuck snorted at that. Well, it wasn’t exactly wrong.

“With dark magic!” Caridad shook her head. “You’ve been manipulating people! And you’re doing it again!” With a snarl, she flung two throwing spikes at the witch, though both were stopped by a sort of barrier.

And Chuck blinked. What? Why had he thought it was OK to put spells on tourists? The Scoobies had told him that mind-controlling magic was of the über-bad! “She put another spell on us!” he yelled.

But Caridad was already moving, charging straight at the witch with a short sword she had drawn from… somewhere. A demon tried to block her path, but the Slayer jumped over him, blade flashing, and sent his head flying. 

“Chuck! Watch out!”

Sarah! Chuck turned, then gasped - the bouncer was coming right at him! He blinked.

The man was coming right at him - perfect for a throw! Chuck ducked under the arms grasping for him, grabbed one arm and pushed his hip out.

He must have miscalculated, though, since the impact didn’t just send his attacker flying - straight into a pillar - but also threw Chuck to the side and away. Chuck didn’t go down, though - he slid a yard back over the dancing floor, falling into a modified Krav Maga-stance. One down… no, the man was getting up.

Gritting his teeth, Chuck went on the offensive before the man could fully recover from his fall. He took a few steps, speeding up, then jumped, his foot hitting the man in the face, breaking his nose and sending him down on the ground. Chuck landed in a crouch, then stepped forward, kicking the man in the temple. Down.

Or not - a hand grabbed his ankle, and before Chuck could react, he lost his balance and crashed to the ground himself. A moment later, his enemy pounced, going for Chuck’s throat.

But that meant he had released Chuck’s foot. He rolled to the side, avoiding the man’s attempt to pin him, and jumped to his feet in a kip-up motion, then slid to the side, dodging the next attack.

Unbalanced by that, the bouncer crashed into another table, breaking it, and rolled into the chairs behind it. Chuck used the opportunity and grabbed a chair to the side, breaking it over the man’s head. Green blood?

He blinked. 

That allowed his opponent to recover and get up, and throw a broken chair at him with surprising force. Chuck dodged that by dropping to the floor, following up with a leg sweep. He grabbed a chair leg as the man crashed to the ground, then smashed it against the bouncer’s head. Until the man finally stopped moving.

So much green… liquid. Blood.

He blinked.

“Chuck!”

Sarah! “Yes?” he turned. Oh. Sarah and Casey had killed the other demon, and Caridad… 

“The witch ran,” Sarah said. “Are you OK?”

“Uh, yes. I think. Demon blood! Had he gotten demon blood on himself? That could have bad effects. He quickly checked himself No green stains. Or not many. “Where did they run off?”

“Backroom,” Casey replied. The agent was at the door, peering into the room from which the witch had come. “Don’t see them… there’s a trapdoor.”

As if on cue, the entire building suddenly shook. Earthquake! Chuck thought as he struggled to keep standing.

Then he heard the roar. From below. 

“What was that?” Sarah asked.

“Uh…” Chuck swallowed. “Something big and dangerous.”

“Thank you, Sherlock.” Casey flashed his teeth at Chuck in a grimace, then entered the backroom.

He wasn’t a Watcher! He couldn’t identify monsters by sound! Chuck doubted that anyone could. Not unless they had heard this monster before. It wasn’t as if there was a huge library of demon sound files.At least he didn’t know about one.

“Come on, she might need help!” Casey was already at the trapdoor when Chuck and Sarah entered the room. They ran after him, down the narrow stairs.

They passed through a surprisingly - or not so surprisingly - large basement filled with beer casks, wine and liquor bottles, snack food and assorted junk, through another door - and there was Caridad, fighting a huge worm. Worm-like demon, Chuck corrected himself - the thing was about fifteen feet long, and three feet thick - it was hard to tell in the dim light shining from strange, glowing plants. But Chuck clearly could see that most of the demon’s head was made out of teeth. Sharp, jagged teeth that barely missed Caridad as she sliced into the thing’s flank, then jumped away.

Sarah and Casey started shooting, but the bullets didn’t seem to hurt the thing, so they stopped after a few shots.

“What can we do?” Casey asked.

Good question. Chuck had no idea. Attacking it with blades or clubs was out - Caridad had trouble keeping up with the monster and was bleeding from several wounds already. Anyone else would have been a monster-snack by now.

Chuck looked around. The floor was covered with mushrooms - or something like them. Several tunnels seemed to lead further away - and down. And there were baskets full of mushrooms at the back, but no sign of… He noticed a reddish smear on the ground, then saw what was left of the witch behind the broken remains of a particularly tall plant. 

He was definitely not going to go near that monster - Chuck didn’t want to end up squished. But they had to do something! Fire! If they couldn’t behead a demon, setting it on fire was the next default tactic. “Come on, guys! Let’s get some Molotov cocktails!” he yelled, turning back to the storage room. He remembered seeing a jerry can of gasoline on the way through.

“Hold on a little longer!” he yelled as they rushed back. “We’ll be right back!”

Caridad didn’t answer, which was a bad sign. Either she had to focus so much on fighting, she couldn’t afford to quip, or she was fixated on her enemy. They had to hurry.

Both Casey and Sarah had passed him, and when Chuck reached them, Casey was already emptying bottles for Sarah to fill with gasoline. “Find some rags!” Casey yelled. “What a waste of booze!”

Rags. Rags. Rags! There! Chuck grabbed some towels and rushed to Sarah. She ripped them up, then soaked them in gasoline.

And then they were rushing back, each of them carrying two or three Molotov cocktails. Caridad looked worse when they arrived - she was bleeding heavily from one of her arms - but she was still going at the demon with all she had. 

“Fall back!” Chuck yelled.

The Slayer didn’t react. Instead, she went in low, slashing at the thing’s belly. And got almost crushed before she rolled to the side.

But that was the opening they needed. Two burning bottles smashed into the demon’s head, followed by Chuck’s bottle. With an inhuman shriek, the monster reared up, hitting the ceiling, which shook the earth again. Two more bottles flew. Chuck was about to throw his second when it was ripped out of his hands. Caridad was there. Baring her teeth in a feral snarl, she launched the bottle herself, straight into the demon’s mouth.

The shrieks grew loud enough to hurt, and the worm started thrashing on the ground, setting the plants ablaze and causing the entire cave to shake.

Chuck looked at the others with wide eyes. “Uh…”

“Run!”

*****

“Run!” Sarah barely heard herself over the deafening shrieks of the burning, thrashing demon. But everyone was already running towards the door leading to the bar’s normal basement. She stumbled a little when the ground suddenly shook particularly violently but kept her balance. Chuck, though, slipped and fell in front of her, catching himself on his hands.

She gasped, then coughed from the smoke rapidly filling the room as she moved to help him, but Caridad was there already, hoisting Chuck up as if he weighed nothing.

Relief warred with envy as Sarah kept running after the Slayer and Casey. She coughed again, worried - who knew what the smoke from the burning plants would do to a human inhaling it? Nothing good, she thought. But she couldn’t hold her breath so long and run at full speed.

Behind her, something crashed to the ground. Not the worm - parts of the cave’s ceiling, she realised with a glance over her shoulder. And another part hit the ground, causing more tremors as they entered the bar’s actual basement.

Her eyes widened a little when she spotted the number of broken liquor bottles on the ground. Strong liquor. Flowing towards the cave…

She turned. She had to close the door behind them, or the whole basement would go up. But the smoke was already filling the tunnel and entering the basement, obscuring her view. Definitely not natural. She didn’t let that stop her, though, slamming the door shut in the face of approaching flames. And tried not to breathe too many fumes. Now… she turned and stumbled after the others.

“Sarah!”

That was Chuck - being carried up the stairs. She gritted her teeth and went after him. Hoping there wouldn’t be too many alcohol fumes. She was already feeling lightheaded, and if not for the railings, would have fallen on the stairs - and probably tumbled to her death.

“Sarah!”

“Oh hell! Run, Chuck!”

Someone - Caridad - grabbed her belt and a moment later, she was hoisted on a shoulder, almost knocking her head against the stairway as she was carried upstairs. 

“Run! Run!”

From her position, she could see the flickering light cast by flames appearing behind her as they rushed out of the backroom, towards the bar’s doors.

“I’m running!”

Then they were through the door, out in the street, and Sarah found herself dumped on Chuck, who stumbled on her weight. “Here!”

By the time Chuck had managed to put Sarah down on her own swaying feet, Caridad had already rushed back into the bar. What was the Slayer… Oh. The drunks left behind. “We need to help her,” Sarah mumbled. But her legs didn’t cooperate. And neither did Chuck’s. Casey managed to get to the bar’s entrance, probably on sheer spite and pride, then was almost bowled over by a body hitting him.

As Casey stumbled back, dragging the drunk with him, Sarah realised they were surrounded by a crowd. Of course - the earthquake would have had sent everyone in the area out of the buildings! She really should have expected that! She giggled - she was being silly.

“Sarah?”

“Hm?” She snorted again when she saw Casey drop the drunk in the middle of the street. Oh, the flames had reached the bar, or so it seemed - the flickering light was growing stronger in the back.

“Fire! The bar’s on fire!” someone yelled from the crowd.

They were slow too. Sarah giggled again. She should sit down and watch the fire. Oh, she was sitting already. Heh! Funny!

The Slayer appeared in the door once more, throwing two bodies into the street, then disappeared again. Drunk tossing!

“Sarah?”

“Chuck?”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes. Yes. It’s just funny.”

Caridad reappeared, carrying two more drunks. She didn’t toss them, though, to Sarah’s disappointment, but carried them out into the street. Feh.

But then the bar blew up, like a firework, and Sarah clapped. Pretty!

Chuck clapped as well. Only Casey didn’t, of course. And Caridad. Probably mad she hadn’t been able to personally kill the monster.

Feh. Sarah leaned against Chuck, who was sitting now, too, and rested her head on his shoulder. She was feeling rather tired, and Chuck made for a good pillow.

*****

**Jamaica, Montego Bay, January 9th, 2008**

Sarah woke up with a splitting headache. Just how much had she drunk last night? Then she remembered. The meeting with Jim. The bar. The spell. The witch and the demon. She hadn’t drunk anything. 

But she had inhaled the smoke from burning mushrooms - and burning demon, probably. Oh, damn!

She closed her eyes and groaned. She was in their hotel room, but where was Chuck? “Chuck?” She had to cough - her throat hurt, too.

“Sarah? Did I wake you?”

There he was, standing in the door to the bathroom. “No, you didn’t.” She shook her head, but that made the headache worse. 

“You inhaled the most of the smoke, I think,” Chuck said. “You were pretty, uh…”

“Stoned,” she finished for him.

“Uh, yes.” He nodded. “Morgan says the mushrooms are like weed, just stronger. We didn’t get a sample, but we could describe them for him. And we checked with London.”

That was good news. “No lasting effects then?” Chuck and Grimes had had some stories about those. Stories which were not really funny once you thought about it happening to yourself.

He shook his head as he sat down on the bed next to her. “Not as far as we know. It seems as if the witch wasn’t just selling overpriced drinks, but also special ‘weed’ laced with demon mushrooms.”

“Ah.” She pursed her lips. First Sarah had been magically mind-controlled, then drugged. If the witch hadn’t been killed already, Sarah would go and hunt her down herself. She frowned at another thought. “I didn’t do anything that… compromised our cover, did I?” Or Anything embarrassing.

“Uh… no. You just wanted to use me as a pillow. In the middle of the street,” he told her with a lopsided smile. “It was cute.”

She snorted. Of course Chuck would think so. It was still embarrassing. And even if it could have been much worse, she wouldn’t let this go. Couldn’t. “We need to pay another visit to Jim.” He had sent them there, after all.

Chuck nodded. “Yes, we do.”

*****

“Did you notice the earthquake?” Bane asked at breakfast. “They say it was very localised; limited to parts of the town. It sounds more as if someone used explosives underground. A bar burned down as well.”

“It was a drug lab,” Casey said. “It went up while we were sorting out a misunderstanding.”

Technically correct, Chuck thought.

“A misunderstanding?” Bane’s eyebrows rose.

“We were given faulty intel by a local source,” Chuck explained. “Someone might have tried to use us to deal with their competition.”

“That’s an old trick,” Bane commented. “That’s why you always double-check your intel.”

“That’s not always possible,” Chuck pointed out.

“We were scouting the place out when we were attacked,” Sarah said. “We just defended ourselves.”

“They had drugged the drinks,” Chuck added.

“What? Is our cover compromised?” Bane looked alarmed.

“No,” Caridad said between emptying a huge platter from the breakfast buffet. “They didn’t know who we are or they wouldn’t have dared to attack us.” She grabbed a pot of coffee and refilled her mug for the third or fourth time.

“Really.” Bane didn’t seem convinced. “They will expect retaliation, though.”

“Won’t help them,” Caridad replied.

“We might need to talk to our, err, mutual contact, though,” Morgan pointed out. “This might be another misunderstanding.”

Sarah scoffed. “I don’t think so. They must have known what was happening in this bar.”

Chuck agreed, but it would be better to check with Zabuto anyway. Before he could say so, though, Casey spoke up: “We don’t want to give them another warning. Let’s just hit the scumbag and find out what he planned.”

“Uh…” Chuck grimaced. “We’re not about to torture him? I’m bad with torture. I mean, I feel bad about it. I mean, about doing it to someone, too. Not just about getting tortured.”

“We get it, Bartowski.” Casey scoffed. “Don’t worry - you can go and play some games in the arcade while we ask the questions.”

“There’s an arcade here?” Morgan perked up. “Where? It’s been ages since I was in a good arcade!”

Now that he thought of it, Chuck hadn’t been to an arcade in years, either. Perhaps…

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Casey said, baring his teeth. “It was just a figure of speech.”

“Oh.” Morgan sounded disappointed.

“So… we go and hit the guy? I mean, go and ask him a few questions about not telling us all we need to know?” Caridad asked. A little too eagerly, in Chuck’s opinion. This could have been a mere misunderstanding or faulty intelligence on Jim’s part.

“Exactly,” Sarah answered with a fierce smile.

Chuck winced. If Sarah and Caridad agreed on a course of action, things were bound to turn violent.

“I can check the location out,” Bane offered. “He hasn’t met me, yet.”

“He’ll know that you’re with us,” Sarah told her. “We arrived together.”

“A mistake, in hindsight,” Bane said after a moment.

“It would have been more suspicious to arrive separately and then quickly become close friends here,” Sarah retorted.

Chuck wouldn’t call them ‘close friends’, though. Anything but, what with the tension between Casey and Caridad and Sarah and Bane. And Caridad and Sarah didn’t get along perfectly well, either. And Casey was quite abrasive…

He snorted. Where team dynamics were concerned, Team Bartowski was one of a kind.

“What’s so funny?” Casey asked with narrowed eyes.

“Uh, nothing, nothing. Just a stray thought. A real stray thought, you know, not a flash,” Chuck quickly explained. “Uh, so… how do we do it? If he’s not at the bar, we’ll have to find him.”

“He might be in hiding already,” Caridad said. “He’s must know that we won’t take this lying down.”

“They know him at the bar. They’ll tell us his address.” Casey grinned.

“Uh…” Chuck grimaced. “But won’t he expect that? He won’t be at home, will he? And you still have another mission, right?” he reminded Caridad.

“Right,” she agreed - though with a pout.

“Well, he used the bar as a meeting spot. If he has gone to ground, then we can at least make trouble for him there,” Sarah said.

“And if we can always come back and settle things,” Caridad added.

It seemed both spies and Slayers held grudges. 

Although… Jim was a contact of Zabuto. If Jim wasn’t trustworthy, then Zabuto probably wasn’t either. And that would interest the Council. He forced himself to smile. “So… tonight, we hunt?”

Instead of laughing, everyone nodded. Even Morgan.

*****

“...though results are not to be expected quickly.”

Hearing the news on the radio about a team of geologists investigating the ‘localised earthquake’ and driving past several buildings where people were fixing small damages, Chuck felt guilty. A lot of people had to deal with the aftermath of the battle against that demon worm. The ones whose homes had suffered some damages were actually better off - they could fix it - but the geologists were on a fool’s errand; even if they managed to discover the actual reason for the ‘earthquake’, the Council would cover it up. Which would mean more work for the Council. Well, they would already have to deal with the police investigation of the fire. Unless the witch had paid off the local cops, that would require intervening - the local authorities wouldn’t miss the underground cave system once the rubble had been cleared enough to gain access to the basement.

Well, Chuck and his friends and allies hadn’t known about the demon when they visited the bar, had they? It wasn’t really their fault, was it? The ones at fault were the now-dead witch, her equally dead demon minions - and, should he have known about it, Jim Dixon.

Whom they were about to visit in the evening. But first, they had to scout out a good spot for a demonstration with a vampire. It wouldn’t do to catch a vampire without having a safe and secluded place ready. In Los Angeles, they, especially Caridad, knew their way around. There, they’d be able to improvise even in an alley. But here? In a tourist trap?

He winced at his choice of words, even if he hadn’t actually said them out loud. They had just burned down a literal tourist trap, after all.

“Chuck? Is something wrong?” Sarah asked. She sounded tense.

Oh. “Just thinking,” he told her, “about the aftermath of the ‘earthquake’. The Council will be covering it up.”

“Will they be annoyed about having to send more people to the island just after they had a courier come pick up the artefacts?” Sarah asked as she took another corner.

“I don’t think so. This is pretty routine, after all. Usually, the local Wachter would be handling this, but since they don’t have a local Watcher in Jamaica…” He shrugged. Someone familiar with the Caribbean would do it, he thought. “They might let Zabuto handle it.”

“Even though his local ‘friends’ might be responsible?”

“Well… keeping the supernatural secret is something even demons support. Most of them, at least. But I think that the Council won’t trust Zabuto as much as they had until now. Once they receive Morgan’s report, at least.” 

“Do you think they’ll ask us to investigate him?”

“Zabuto? Hm.” Chuck pursed his lips as he considered this. It would make sense, but did the Council trust them enough to set them on such a task? Caridad would be trusted, but she wasn’t exactly an investigator or auditor, and Morgan was still in training. But… “They might ask Morgan to investigate, knowing it would involve us as well, I think.”

“Ah.” Sarah didn’t sound pleased hearing about such machinations.

“We could consider it a test?” Chuck ventured.

Sarah nodded, though Chuck had the impression that she was more motivated by dealing out some payback for the whole affair than anything else. “So… see any useful warehouse?” he said after a moment. They had left the area affected by the tremors, and the tourist zones as well.

“A few, but we’ll have to check them out,” Sarah replied, nodding towards a cluster of buildings ahead of them. “An isolated place outside the town might be better,” she said.

Chuck nodded. Caridad was checking out the countryside, under the guise of doing some bicycling in the area, but she hadn’t reported back yet.

So, they had to check out warehouses. Chuck hoped they weren’t too successful and found a deserted one that had already been taken over by a few vampires or demons. It was the middle of the day, but that didn’t mean such an encounter would be safe.

*****

As it had turned out, the warehouses weren’t quite deserted. Just not used very much. But there were security guards patrolling. Fortunately, they had readily believed that Sarah and Chuck had merely gotten lost on the way to a beach. But they couldn’t use the warehouses for a demonstration. And since Caridad hadn’t found a secluded spot close enough to Montego Bay to drag a vamp there on foot, they would have to trust that they could find a deserted side alley for a demonstration. Which was what they were doing now.

Chuck shook his head as he and Sarah walked with the rest of the group through the harbour area of Montego Bay, mixing with a throng of tourists out to enjoy the nightlife. At least Casey would be able to scare off any passers-by - the man was constantly scowling, it seemed. Not exactly like a tourist would behave on vacation, in Chuck’s opinion. Not that he’d mention that to the agent, of course.

“Where are we going?” Bane asked from the rear - Morgan was still on crutches but didn’t want to miss out on this. ‘As the only Watcher available, I should be present’, he had claimed, though Chuck suspected his friend mostly wanted to be there when Bane found out about demons.

“I’ve heard about a great club,” Caridad, leading them, said. “It should be around here, somewhere.”

“You said that ten minutes ago,” Bane replied. “Can’t we ask for directions?”

“No,” Caridad told her. “I’m sure it’s right…” She trailed off, and Chuck could see her grin widen. “Gotcha!”

And the Slayer sped away - towards a dark side alley.

Chuck almost groaned as they gave chase - sort of. Unlike the Slayer, they had more trouble pushing through the crowd on the street; they weren’t supernaturally fast and graceful, nor did people give way to them almost instinctively. Well, Casey probably could come close.

“Let’s go!” he heard Morgan behind him.

“What? You can’t fight like this!” Bane objected.

“I won’t have to, trust me.”

The Chuck was at the alley’s entrance, looking into it. It was very dark - a twisting turn ensured that you couldn’t see much of it from the main street. If Caridad hadn’t entered first, he wouldn’t like to go down this alley. Well, he didn’t like it anyway, but it was - probably - safe.

Sarah pushed past him, taking the lead as they entered the alley, Casey falling back. “I’ll keep this end clear,” he said.

The sounds from the street faded slightly after the first twisting turn. In exchange, Chuck could hear the sounds of fighting. And taunting.

“Oh, did that hurt? As much as this, or not?”

“Bitch!”

“Oh, I’m hurt! Not!”

“Ow!”

“No running! I need you… yes, keep that face!”

Sarah drew her pistol a moment before someone appeared in front of them, stumbling. Oh, a tourist, probably drunk. He didn’t seem to be hurt - Chuck couldn’t see blood, at least - but was obviously terrified. “Mo-monster!” he stammered, reaching for Chuck.

“Ah…” Chuck took a step back. He didn’t want to deal with a drunk vampire victim. Or demon victim. But probably vampire.

“Run!” Sarah snapped.

The man blinked, then ran. Or tried to. It was more like a fast stumble. But it got him away, and Chuck and Sarah continued.

Another turn - Montego Bay’s long history was showing here - they reached Caridad and her enemy. Or victim. The Slayer had a vampire in game face on the ground, one foot on its back. The demon’s arms and legs were broken - even a vampire’s limbs didn’t bend that way.

“There you are! Where’s Bane?”

“She’ll be right here,” Chuck said. “Morgan can’t run.” Which Caridad should have known.

She huffed for some reason, then slammed her heel on the vampire’s hand. Chuck winced at the sound of crunching bones. It was just a corpse possessed by a demon, he reminded himself as he started to pull a few sticks, a couple vials and a decently-sized mirror out of his pack. And a lamp. They would need light for the demonstration, after all.

Chuck hoped that if the alley was secluded enough for a vampire feeding, it would be secluded enough for a vampire killing.

“Ah, there we are!” Morgan had arrived. “Sorry guys - that idiot almost tackled me.”

“What are you doing?” Bane asked. She stepped closer, a frown on her face. “And who is this?”

“Not who, what,” Caridad replied with a grin as she, once more, broke the vampire’s arms.

“It’s a vampire,” Chuck said. “It tried to eat the drunk guy you saw.”

“A vampire.” Bane didn’t quite scoff, but it was clear she didn’t believe him. “Really.”

Well, they never did. Which was why Chuck had brought so many things to prove his claim. Even though it was usually the mirror check that convinced people that this wasn’t a trick.

He bet Bane would insist on using her own mirror before she was convinced, though.

*****

As Chuck had expected, the cross and holy water hadn’t been enough, nor the way the demon healed its wounds. It had taken the mirror. Bane’s own mirror, to be exact. And she had double-checked it for any sign of tampering before she had finally accepted that this wasn’t a trick played on her.

“Vampires exist.”

“And we hunt them! Well, I do. The rest is helping.” Caridad said as she staked what was left of the vampire.

“Demons exist.”

“Only as long as they behave, or we destroy them!”

“Magic is real.”

“And a bitch to fight!”

Chuck couldn’t help thinking that Bane wasn’t really listening to Caridad’s replies. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Now you know what the Council’s doing. They’re fighting a global war on demons and other threats to humanity as a whole.” Putting it in familiar terms would hopefully help.

“And we’re winning!” Caridad announced.

“That’s…” Bane blinked. “Those were real zombies!” She stared at them. “That wasn’t a twin - that was a zombie!”

“Yes. A magic-using zombie, we believe,” Morgan said. “Who controlled the rest.”

“And he had demons as bodyguards,” Caridad added.

“And what... who are you?” Bane looked at the Slayer. “You’re inhumanly strong and fast.”

“Hey! I’m human. Just a little better. Well, a lot.”

“She’s a Vampire Slayer,” Morgan interrupted Caridad. “Chosen by fate to fight demons. Empowered by a great power many millennia ago, Slayers have been fighting the forces of darkness forever. As soon as one falls, another is called.” Morgan’s delivery could use some work, Chuck thought. But it was essentially correct.

“Well, only until we changed the rules!” Caridad cut in. “Now there’s an army of us, and we’re cleaning house!”

“An army?” Bane looked alarmed.

“A strictly neutral army,” Chuck pointed out. Best to nip whatever Bane was thinking into the bud. “The Council’s not getting involved in politics of any kind.”

“Not unless demons are involved,” Caridad said. “We’re like the UN of the Supernatural. Just not useless.”

That was a slightly unfortunate comparison, in Chuck’s opinion. The UN did get involved in politics - or would like to if it had the power.

Bane shook her head. “So, that ‘misunderstanding’ last night…?”

“A witch was using magic to make tourists buy overpriced drinks in her bar,” Caridad said. “And when I took offence to that, she ran to her demon patron. The earthquake? That was the thing thrashing around as it died in its cave.”

“What?”

“Oh, don’t worry - it was a normal demon, just larger than normal. Not a real apocalypse. We already stopped one this season.” The Slayer smiled.

“Apocalypse?”

Uh oh. Chuck winced. Perhaps they should have planned out these revelations a little better.

“Attempts to end the world, or destroy a city or so,” Morgan explained. There are usually one or two per year. We prevented Los Angeles from being buried under demon slime with the Council last month.”

“Demon slime? Los Angeles? What is going on here?”

Chuck sighed. They never took that part well.

*****


	23. The Disclosure

**Jamaica, Montego Bay, January 9th, 2008**

“...and then we contained the slime until we could close the portal to the slime dimension,” Morgan finished.

“With magic.”

“Yes.”

“A portal to the ‘slime dimension’.”

“Yes. Or a rift - the definitions are a little unclear.”

“I don’t think the exact terminology matters, Morgan,” Chuck cut in.

“Yeah,” Caridad agreed. “Suffice to say that we stopped the whole slime invasion.”

“We and the Scoobies,” Morgan corrected her.

Caridad huffed in response but didn’t contradict him.

“This is insane!” Bane exclaimed. “You’re talking about a global conspiracy to hide the existence of a threat to the entire world! A threat the CIA and NSA are completely unaware of! This is ridiculous!”

“Actually, the government and selected people in the intelligence services are aware of it,” Chuck pointed out.

“Yeah, there was the whole Initiative debacle,” Morgan added.

“I think we shouldn’t discuss this in the middle of an alley,” Sarah cut in. “Let’s gather Casey and return to the hotel.”

“Yes,” Chuck agreed. 

“There might be more vampires around,” Caridad said, looking down the alley.

“Did you sense anything?” Morgan asked.

“No.”

“We took long enough to find one vampire. Let’s go back to the hotel now.”

Morgan could be decisive if he had to, Chuck noted.

Caridad still grumbled all the way back to the hotel. Fortunately, that wasn’t a long walk - now that they weren’t following a roaming Slayer on a hunt.

*****

“So… anyone want a snack?” Morgan asked, sitting - awkwardly, with one leg, the one with the sprained ankle, stretched out - next to the minibar in Casey and Caridad’s room. He opened it and blinked at the, as Chuck could see, empty fridge. “Never mind.”

“Vampire hunting is hungry work,” Caridad replied from her bed, where she was sprawled out amidst half a dozen sandwiches she had bought from a food stall on the way back.

“I don’t think a single fledgeling vampire is enough to work up an appetite,” Casey said from his bed.

“Hey! If I had staked it quickly, maybe. But I had to keep it down while Miss Spy there tried everything she could think of to prove reality wrong. That took some time.”

Fortunately, Bane seemed to ignore the not-so-subtle dig, Chuck saw. The spy shook her head. “This doesn’t make sense. The United States wouldn’t leave such a crucial area of defence to foreigners.”

“Technically, they have special forces hunting demons,” Chuck told her.

“In South America,” Morgan added.

“They’re more like walking demon bait - anything serious crops up, we have to bail them out,” Caridad cut in after swallowing a large mouthful of bread and sausage. “But they’re useful when it comes to keeping the other military idiots from trying to deal with demons and magic. Buffy and the others already had to save one military base in Sunnydale.”

“What?” Bane gasped.

“Demon Research Initiative,” Morgan informed her. “They had a secret underground base for capturing and researching demons. It went wrong after a few months, and the demons took over. The Scoobies had to clean the base out and save the few survivors before an army of demon-soldier-hybrids swept across the country.”

“That was after graduation,” Chuck said. “Morgan and I had already left the town, so we weren’t around for that.”

“We helped stop Mayor Wilkins from turning into a major demon and eating all of Sunnydale at our graduation, though.” Morgan smiled. “Even though we had to blow up the school to save it.”

Casey grunted something unpleasant - someone was touchy about the old military joke, it seemed.

“What?”

“Oh, that wasn’t normal. Sunnydale was built above a Hellmouth,” Chuck explained. “So it attracted demons and other weirdness from all over the world. But the Hellmouth is closed now.”

“And the town disappeared into a sinkhole as a side-effect,” Sarah spoke up. “As you can see, dabbling in magic is not recommended.”

“And you’ve known about this, but kept it secret from the general.” Bane narrowed her eyes at Sarah, then at Casey.

“Yes,” Sarah admitted. “Although that was merely following the lawful orders of her superiors.”

“The general’s not cleared to know this,” Casey added.

“And you are?” Bane retorted.

“Yes,” Morgan said. “Since the Council cleared them.”

“A foreign organisation.”

“Actually, it’s headed by Americans these days,” Chuck told her. “But it’s also an allied organisation. There are treaties with the US government.”

“It’s all above board. Well, sort of,” Morgan added with a shrug.

“The Council takes care of the supernatural threats, and the government stays out of our way,” Caridad summed up.

Bane shook her head. “And why doesn’t anyone know about this? You say vampires and demons are hiding among humans - and preying on them! Why is this a secret?”

“Ah…” Chuck winced as he raised his index finger. “That’s because if too many humans believe - really believe - in demons and magic, the Old Ones will wake up.”

“And no one, not even the demons, wants that to happen. That would be the end of the world. Literally,” Morgan said. “And the hell dimensions will probably follow.”

Bane blinked. “...what?”

*****

They left Grimes to explain the finer details of the supernatural world and their role in it to Bane and returned to their rooms. Or, in Caridad’s case, went hunting, as the Slayer had announced while leaving. Sarah didn’t know if that was merely an excuse not to spend the evening in the same room as Casey and didn’t really care, either. 

“Do you think she’ll…” Chuck shrugged. “I mean…”

“...play ball?” she finished for him.

“Yes.” He nodded emphatically.

She shrugged in response. “I don’t know.” Not yet. “She seems to still be in shock.” Sarah certainly had taken the whole revelation about vampires, demons and magic much better than Bane.

“Morgan’s with her.”

That might not help matters overly much, in Sarah’s opinion. Which she didn’t share with Chuck. “It’s a lot to take in,” she said, instead. “But she knows our orders.”

“Both the official and unofficial ones,” Chuck agreed.

“Yes.” She started to undress, taking care to appear unconcerned and casual. He was staring at her, she noticed with satisfaction as she dropped her shirt.

He cleared his throat. “Uh....” And there he licked his lips. “I mean… do you think she’ll follow the official or unofficial orders?”

With her back to him, she slowly pulled her pants down, putting a little extra wriggle into it. “I think she is smart enough to realise that if she doesn’t follow the official orders, her superiors will use her as a scapegoat as soon as the Council puts pressure on the agency.” And if Bane wasn’t smart enough, then she deserved what would happen to her.

“But doesn’t that mean that she’ll also realise that, like you and Casey, she’ll be seen as compromised?” Chuck said.

She looked over her shoulder at him while she dropped her sports bra. “That’s likely, yes.”

He cleared his throat again, and she noticed that he was blushing. “So… she’ll be looking for a way out as well?”

Bane probably had a few plans to get out should she end up burned by the agency - Sarah had made such plans herself, after all. “She might work on Morgan,” she told him turning around and picking her robe up from the chair on to which she had dropped it earlier.

Chuck didn’t answer until she had slipped into the robe. “Uh, yes. But she’s doing that anyway, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” She faced him, not bothering to close her robe. “Aren’t you getting ready for bed?” she asked with a sly smile.

He blinked, almost as long as when he flashed, then nodded. “Uh, yes…”

“Let me help you,” she told him as she walked over to him, hips swaying. “And don’t bother with pyjamas.”

She hadn’t used a favour so they could stay at this hotel on the CIA’s tab for nothing, after all.

*****

**Jamaica, Montego Bay, January 10th, 2008**

The Pirate’s Eye Bar hadn’t been affected by the ‘earthquake’, as far as Chuck could tell. He couldn’t see any damage or fresh repairs, and they didn’t seem to have picked up the business of the now destroyed Buccaneer Bar, either - the patrons appeared to be the same mix of mostly locals and a few tourists that they had seen during their last visit.

But… “Guys, I think the bouncer’s wary of us,” Chuck said in a low voice as they approached the bar. Did the staff have a guilty conscience?

“He should be,” Caridad said, chuckling. “They know I’m the Slayer. And they know what happened to the Buccaneer Bar when we visited it.”

“I bet the traitor’s fled,” Casey said in a low growl.

“We’ll see,” Sarah said. 

“And we’ll talk, first, right?” Chuck looked at the others. “Right?”

After a slightly too long pause, they nodded - if grudgingly, in Caridad’s case. Chuck breathed a sigh of relief as they reached the entrance.

The bouncer didn’t bother them - didn’t even attempt to search them for weapons. Jim must have informed them of their identity. Or, at least, Caridad’s.

Well, they had expected that. As before, Morgan and Bane had stayed at the hotel. Morgan because he was still limping, Bane because she still hadn’t fully recovered from last night’s revelations. And if anything happened, they would be able to call in help from either the CIA or the Council. Or both.

Inside, the group slowly made their way to the bar, checking for ambushes and curses on the way - well, the others did that. Chuck tried to check on the people present; see if the Intersect triggered on any of them.

But it didn’t, and they reached the bar without incident.

“Jim’s waiting in the back room,” the bartender told them in lieu of a greeting.

That was a surprise. Jim must be either confident or ignorant. Or this might be a trap. Chuck looked at Caridad, but she merely nodded with a grin. So, she hadn’t smelled anything demon-y, yet.

“Fine,” Sarah told the bartender, then turned away and headed towards the door to the backroom. Chuck sped up a little to catch up to her. He wasn’t carrying weapons other than a stake and the holy water vials, but, in a pinch, the Intersect should activate.

Sarah didn’t bother knocking - she went straight into the room.

Where Jim and Zabuto were waiting.

Great.

“You sent us against a witch with demon allies without warning us!” Caridad spat. “Are you stupid, evil or both?”

Chuck winced. That wasn’t helping - even if she was correct.

Jim frowned at her, then sneered. “Hey - you’re the Slayer; you said so yourself. You could easily deal with Mary and her crew - and you did, too!” he retorted in his heavy accent. “I didn’t think you wanted or needed a warning.”

“Really? You didn’t want to see us get hurt, maybe lose a few people walking into a trap, huh?” Caridad marched straight up to Jim’s desk, then veered off and stepped to the side - the one opposite Zabuto.

Jim looked more nervous now, Chuck noticed. Did he realise that he had miscalculated? Chuck looked at Zabuto, who hadn’t said anything yet. What was he doing here?

“And don’t try to point your gun at me or I gut you like a fish!” Caridad snapped, and a knife that almost qualified as a short sword appeared in her hand.

Sarah and Casey drew their guns at once and spread out, covering both Jim and Zabuto. And Zabuto had a crystal in his hand - probably containing a curse that would be released should it shatter. Like, say, if the retired Watcher got shot.

But would Sarah and Casey be aware of that? Enough to stop them from shooting him out of reflex, should things start to go wrong?

“And tell your crew to stay put!” Caridad told the young man with a glare at the door behind Chuck. “If they enter this room, it’ll go bad for them!”

Zabuto raised his crystal. “I believe that you all would be well advised to calm down,” he said - his Queen’s English a sharp contrast to Jim’s accent.

“Or?” Casey aimed at him.

“This crystal both is fragile and contains a rather nasty curse,” Zabuto confirmed Chuck’s expectations.

That didn’t make Casey lower his pistol, of course. Quite the contrary, actually. “You’d be dead before the thing hits the ground,” the agent stated with a twisted grin.

And, as a glance told Chuck, Caridad was now eyeing Zabuto. Probably trying to figure out how to stop the crystal from getting shattered without shattering it herself.

“And you’d join me soon afterwards - and you’ll wish you had been shot,” Zabuto retorted.

Chuck caught Sarah glancing at him and cleared his throat. Best to get on with why they were here before someone started a fight by accident. “You withheld vital information,” he told Jim. “You didn’t treat with us in good faith.”

“I told you - it didn’t look as if you needed anything else than the address.”

Caridad scoffed. “Your ego couldn’t handle me being better at hunting demons.”

She still wasn’t helping! Chuck gritted his teeth and frowned at her, but she ignored him, staring at Jim. “We’re all on the same side,” he said, hoping that he wasn’t lying. “Playing such games - for whatever reason - only helps the demons.”

“The Council isn’t exactly interested in cooperation,” Zabuto said. “Yet we’re expected to drop everything and support them without question when they call on us?”

“We’re not your dogs!” Jim spat.

“We’re not the Council,” Chuck replied. “We’re just another group working with them - with Caridad, to be precise.” Which was true even though they were planning to join the Council. “And we came to you so we wouldn’t cause trouble out of ignorance. We told you that. And yet, you withheld information - and so we ended up with a bar burned down, and a small earthquake damaging the area. Exactly what we wanted to avoid.”

Jim pressed his lips together and glared at him, but Zabuto nodded if a little reluctantly.

“You knew about the spell on the bar, didn’t you?” Caridad said.

“We suspected,” Zabuto admitted. “But given the animosity between Jim’s friends and Mary, and my own reputation, we were unable to confirm it without causing the very fight we wanted to avoid.”

“You should have told us!” Cariad exclaimed.

Zabuto looked at Jim. “Sorry,” the young man muttered.

As far as apologies went, it was one of the least honest Chuck had ever seen since the time the school board had forced Snyder to retract a detention against a bullying victim. And he knew his friends thought the same. But they weren’t here to start another fight, even if Caridad might have temporarily forgotten. So he nodded with a thin smile. “Alright. Glad we sorted this out. Now, are there any similar problems we’re bound to encounter during our stay?”

“No.” Jim scoffed. “We keep the island safe.”

Caridad snorted but, for a change, held her tongue.

Chuck looked at Zabuto. The older man inclined his head. “There are a few practitioners on the island,” he said, “but they keep a low profile and wouldn’t bother the Slayer.”

That wasn’t exactly a rousing endorsement, but Chuck was willing to take what they could get before someone got a cramp and everyone started shooting everyone. “Alright. So, we will enjoy our vacation, and you keep doing what you do, and in less than a week, we’ll be out of your hair.”

He was the only one smiling at his proclamation, he noticed. But no one was shooting or cursing or slashing anyone.

Which was a step up from their latest tense discussion inside a bar.

*****

**Jamaica, Montego Bay, Sandals Montego Bay, January 10th, 2008**

“Get up, stand up; stand up for your rights!” 

Chuck closed his eyes and sighed. The weather was perfect, the room great, the food excellent, and the pool just like he liked it, but he wished there was a little more variety in the music. He’d heard enough Bob Marley and love songs for a year.

“Getting homesick?” Sarah asked as she got back from a brief dip in the pool. “Two more days and we’ll fly home.”

“Oh, no, no,” he quickly said. “I’m just trying to avoid singing along with the lyrics which seem to have been burned into my mind.” He blinked. “And that was an unfortunate choice of words, sorry.”

She chuckled at his lapse. “The music selection here is a little… conservative,” she said.

“Bob Marley, conservative? He’s got to be turning in his grave,” Chuck said. “Although I guess the saying that the older you get, the more conservative you become holds true for songs as well.”

She laughed again. He loved seeing her laugh. It made her look carefree. And beautiful, of course. But she always was beautiful. “Thank you,” he said. “For this,” he added, gesturing at the pool and the bar next to it, when she raised her eyebrows in a silent question.

“You’re welcome” she replied. “It’s too bad it was cut short so much.”

“We’ve spent most of our days relaxing,” he said. “It’s only the nights that were really affected by, well, you know.”

“And not all of the nights.” She sent a sly grin at him that made him blush a little. Which, in turn, made her smile again.

“Does this happen often?” he asked after a moment. “To spies, I mean.”

“Hm?”

“Spending a week on vacation.” It wasn’t the first time they had spent some time ‘maintaining their cover’, after all. But the first time in a Caribbean resort.

“It’s not uncommon,” she told him. “Spies need to decompress as well, after missions. And doing so while maintaining a cover ID is simply efficient.”

“I bet it is.” He gave her a sceptical look, to which she responded with another smile. “I could get used to this,” he said. “Well, less lethal danger would be preferable, of course. But, still…” He could get used to being a spy.

As long as it was with her, of course, he added to himself when she nodded in agreement.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, January 13th, 2008**

“Home sweet home!” Chuck said as they disembarked from the plane. After hours stuck in a narrow seat, he couldn’t wait to stretch his limbs again. Another hour in that plane, and he’d need another vacation to recover. He’d prefer fighting a vampire to flying economy. Well, only if he had a flamethrower and the vampire was tied down.

Shaking his head, he snorted.

“What’s so funny?” Casey growled behind him. “Care to share with the class?”

Chuck suppressed the flashback to Sunnydale High that brought up. “Just a stray thought,” he said. Casey was grumpier than usual, what with having to spend hours next to Caridad, and Chuck didn’t want to further annoy the man.

Contrary to Ellie’s opinion, Chuck did learn from his mistakes. Eventually.

“I’ll have to check how bad things got in my absence,” Caridad announced behind them. 

“Phil will have kept things under control,” Morgan said.

“He’s no Slayer,” Caridad retorted. “And he better not have fought demons without me!”

“If there were a problem, he’d have called in another Slayer. Or a team.”

“What? Los Angeles is my town!” Caridad’s growl sounded remarkably like Casey’s, Chuck noticed. “He better not have called in someone else!” She looked like she was about to rush off to Phil. 

“We need to get our luggage,” Chuck reminded her. And their weapons and other gear.

“Right.” She nodded, then made a beeline towards the baggage claim area.

Chuck didn’t bother reminding her that it would take at least a quarter-hour until their luggage would appear there. Probably longer - the airport was packed.

Still, it wasn’t as if they had anything better to do, and they followed in the Slayer’s wake at a more sedate pace so Morgan could keep up. Chuck glanced at Bane, who was helping his friend. They hadn’t really talked about things. Not since the revelation. Well, Morgan had talked to her, a lot - they had certainly looked like a couple at the hotel - but Chuck wasn’t entirely sure if he could trust his friend’s judgement when it came to the spy.

The debriefing with the general would be interesting. But more interesting would be what Bane would be reporting privately afterwards.

They hadn’t told her about Orion being Chuck’s dad, after all. She had no idea that even her secure channels would be monitored. Or so Chuck hoped - the woman was a veteran spy and might expect that.

But between Dad and Willow, they should have all bases covered.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, January 13th, 2008**

“...and then we withdrew and used the prepared alternative airport to leave the island.”

Casey nodded sharply as he finished his report. Which had been both completely true, technically, and full of holes. Chuck almost nodded in appreciation - for all of Casey’s carefully cultivated image as a straight shooter, the man certainly knew how to stretch the truth and bend the rules. But then, he was a spy, wasn’t he?

Judging by her unamused expression, General Beckman was aware of that as well, though. “I see. Thank you, Major Casey. I’m looking forward to the written reports - from all of you,” she added with a stern glance.

Chuck struggled not to wince. That would require a lot of coordinating so they didn’t contradict each other or accidentally revealed anything classified. He glanced at Bane, but her expression didn’t let on anything.

“And what about your time spent in Jamaica?” the general went on, steepling her fingers as she leaned forward on the screen.

Uh-oh. Chuck swallowed, but Casey was already talking. “There was an incident involving a classified matter, ma’am. It was resolved without issue.”

“I don’t know whether I would classify setting a building on fire and using enough explosives to cause a minor earthquake as ‘resolving an incident without issue’, Major.”

“The details are classified, ma’am.” Casey remained unflappable.

But Chuck glanced, again, at Bane. The spy seemed to be imitating Casey’s stony expression now. She sat straight and stiff in her seat - even Chuck could see that she wasn’t acting as she usually did.

And so would Beckman, though the woman didn’t say anything. “I see. So, the threat to Agent Bane has been neutralised, a drug-running organisation was destroyed, and a case of art and antique theft solved.”

“The organisation run by Lindor might yet recover - we were unable to confirm the death of his partner,” Casey pointed out.

Chuck didn’t have to look at Sarah to know she was frowning - despite the fact that it hadn’t been her fault that she had to leave Sanchez’s yacht in a hurry before taking him out.

“Our sources report infighting among Sanchez’s cartel, so there’s a high probability of his death,” Beckman told them.

Casey nodded in response, as did Sarah and Bane, so Chuck followed their example.

“Do you have anything else to add?”

Was that a not so veiled hint for Bane? Or just the usual question at the end of a debriefing?

“No, ma’am.”

“Dismissed, Agents, Mr Bartowski.”

A moment later, Beckman’s image faded to black.

Chuck took a deep breath and leaned forward, resting his forehead on his arms. “She wasn’t happy.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Casey replied with a scoff. He didn’t slouch, but he stopped standing at parade rest.

“She considers me compromised,” Bane muttered. Chuck looked up and saw that the spy was slumping in her seat.

“Like us,” Sarah said.

“Unless I tell her the truth. At which point shell consider me crazy.” Bane shook her head.

Chuck almost asked if she’d only realised this now. But she’d had days to think this over. “Yes. Like us,” he said. “Well, like Sarah and Casey.” Stressing that they were in this together would help, wouldn’t it? “She doesn’t really consider me an agent.” Even though she wanted him to sign up with the CIA. As an analyst, though. Not an agent. Although if she knew about the Intersect’s skill package… He buried that thought. He wanted to become a spy to work with Sarah, and that wouldn’t be possible under Beckman.

“She doesn’t know what you can do,” Bane replied.

“It’s a simple ploy to make you feel different from the rest of us,” Sarah pointed out.

“Well, it’s not working.” Chuck shook his head. He might not be a trained spy - yet - but he was part of the team. The Burbank Team. Or Team Burbank? The Burbank Station? Or was that just a naval term?

Sarah, standing next to his seat, put her hand on his shoulder. They smiled at each other until Casey scoffed again.

“So… what happens now?” Bane asked.

“We protect Chuck and his family and wait for the next mission,” Sarah replied at once.

“I meant about the Council,” Bane explained, frowning at the other spy. “You’re planning to jump ship, aren’t you?”

“Uh…” Technically, that wasn’t true, was it? At least not for Chuck. Or did it count if he was being paid by the CIA, without being a real agent?

“Yes,” Sarah admitted, to Chuck’s surprise. Then again, it was kind of obvious, after Haiti and Jamaica, wasn’t it? “Do you want to follow us?”

Now that was a surprise! Chuck really hadn’t expected Sarah to… wait. She hadn’t offered Bane to join them, had she? Well, it was implied, and she wouldn’t ask, only to turn her down? That would make an enemy out of Bane for sure!

“I’m also checking other options,” Bane replied. “But it’s an obvious move.”

Sarah and Casey nodded while Chuck felt a little lost. What did that mean? For Bane, for them, and for Morgan?

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, January 14th, 2008**

“...and see, here? That’s the menu to reset your default settings.”

“Ah, thank you! It had disappeared - I did exactly what you just did!”

Of course. And the man had remembered this exactly like he remembered how to turn his laptop off. Chuck forced himself to nod as the customer blatantly lied in his face. “That happens sometimes,” he lied in return.

His smile disappeared as soon as the man turned away to leave the store. “That was the third customer today who shouldn’t be allowed to have a computer, and it’s not even break time yet! Did Big Mike tell everyone like them to come back today?” he asked rhetorically.

Or not so rhetorically - Jeff and Lester were cringing at his, completely understandable, outburst, Chuck noticed. He narrowed his eyes at them and quickly grabbed Lester’s collar when the man tried to run. “Not so fast, buster!”

“Uh… but we’ve got an urgent call. Two urgent calls!” Lester protested.

Jeff nodded, and not in his usual sloth-like slow movement. Which, Chuck realised, might be due to his demon nature. “Yeah.”

“Then let’s make this short!” Chuck smiled at them like Casey would - all toothy and threatening. They winced in return, and Lester even whimpered. “Did you reschedule all the annoying customers for today, when you knew I’d be back?”

“I plead the fifth!” Lester blurted out, Jeff nodding with every word. “You can’t prove anything! We had no choice! No, we didn’t!”

Chuck closed his eyes and sighed. “Guys, that’s not OK. We don’t do that kind of thing here - we don’t push off our work on others,” he explained when he saw their confused expressions.

Both of them glanced towards the staff area. Why would… Chuck groaned. Big Mike’s office was there. “Guys, Big Mike’s management.”

“So are you!” Lester shot back.

Chuck frowned at the man, and he flinched back again. “I’m assistant manager,” he corrected him. “I’m still working at the Nerd Herd desk, as you can see. And we don’t push off our work to our colleagues. Especially not when they’re on vacation.”

“But there was so much work!” Lester complained again. “And we’re Mac specialists! Not PC support!”

“Really? It seems you need some remedial training, then,” Chuck said. “Like, say, an evening course in PC support?”

“Ugh…” Jeff groaned. The two miscreants exchanged glances. “No, no, we’re good!”

Chuck let them scurry away and rubbed the bridge of his nose with another sigh. “I’d prefer to get shot at, I think,” he mumbled. Then he blinked when he realised that it was actually true. Mostly.

“I hope I’m not turning into Casey,” he muttered, watching the agent scare away another potential customer just by being his not so lovable self.

“Chuck! I need a hand!”

That was Morgan. But he was still on sick leave, wasn’t he? Chuck turned towards the entrance, then blinked. Morgan was there, still on crutches, and next to him was a dolly with the stuffed shark he had bought in Haiti. Pushed by Bane. 

He had actually sent the thing home? And it had arrived already? Why didn’t that ever happen when they needed some crucial spare parts for work? “Morgan?”

“Hi, Chuck! We’re here with Big Mike’s souvenir! Can you give us a hand to help get it to him?”

Chuck forced himself to smile. This wouldn’t end well. Not at all.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, January 14th, 2008**

“...and Big Mike actually liked the thing! He said it went well with his Merlin! Can you imagine that? The two fishes take up half of his office!”

Sarah laughed at Chuck’s tale. He pouted in return. “It doesn’t make sense.”

She shrugged, then took another swallow from her soda. “Apparently, he likes stuffed fishes.”

“He can’t even claim he caught it - everyone saw Morgan cart it inside, and he’s currently telling everyone how he found it in some hidden, secret shop in Jamaica.”

Jamaica, not Haiti? That must have been Bane’s influence. Sarah didn’t think that Grimes would have thought of lying about the actual origin of the stuffed shark by himself. She shrugged again. “I don’t think that will stop him from inventing a story about catching it himself. Anglers are infamous for making up such stories, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are,” Chuck admitted, downing his coke with a frown.

She cocked her head and studied him. “Is something wrong?” He wasn’t like this, usually.

He sighed. “I’m just a little annoyed at having to deal with stupid customers and worse co-workers.”

“Jeff and Lester?”

“Yes.” He leaned back and shook his head. “They told every annoying customer to come back today, when they knew I’d be back.”

“Ah.” She frowned. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“No, it wasn’t. And with Morgan on crutches for a few more days, we’re still a man short,” Chuck complained. “At least as spies, we don’t have to deal with that sort of stuff.”

“We only have to deal with traitors and assassins,” she replied. And she didn’t yet know whether Bane would reveal herself as either of those.

Chuck sighed. “You’re right. Still - isn’t it annoying to come back from a mission only to have to deal with annoying customers again?”

“You get used to it,” she told him. “It’s just a cover, after all. And,” she added after a moment, “pretending to be normal, and dealing with normal problems, is also nice.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “I didn’t look at it like that.” He chuckled. “Not that I’d call Jeff and Lester ‘normal’, you know?”

She nodded with a snort. Those two were anything but normal, even discounting Jeff’s real species. And yet, they were less annoying, and far less dangerous, than some of Sarah’s past co-workers.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Hollywood, January 16th, 2008**

“I don’t know about this…” Chuck trailed off as he looked around.

“What?” Sarah, standing next to him, frowned. “We need to know what exactly the Intersect is doing to you,” she told him. “It’s in your head affecting your brain. And your father’s the best choice to examine you.”

“The only choice, actually,” Chuck replied. It wasn’t as if there were any other experts with his knowledge and experience - even leaving aside the need for secrecy, Chuck didn’t want some CIA-scientists with only a hunch about the real capabilities of the Intersect to poke around in his brain. “But I’m concerned about the fact that we’re about to openly walk into a clinic for the examination. During business hours.” Fake IDs and disguises notwithstanding, it felt wrong.

“A private clinic,” Sarah retorted. “One known for the discretion of the staff.” She smiled and took his arm “Come on, Mr Cadbury, we’re going to be late to your appointment with your private doctor.”

He smiled weakly as they entered the clinic, but as Sarah had predicted, the nurse at the reception desk didn’t even blink at their large sunglasses, nor did she more than glance at the fake IDs they presented.

Although that probably was because Dad had completely penetrated the clinic’s system and scheduled everything - Chuck didn’t think a disguised journalist could enter as easily. At least he hoped they couldn’t.

A nurse led them into the clinic and to an examination room. “Dr Waters is waiting inside, Mr Cadbury,” she told them with a professional smile as she opened the door.

And that was Dad there. Even with a wig and fake beard, Chuck could recognise him at once. “Ah, Mr Cadbury. And Mrs Cadbury. Good afternoon. Everythings set up,” Dad told them - for the benefit of the nurse closing the door behind them, of course. As soon as the door closed, Dad pulled a device out of the pockets of his lab coat. A prototype CIA scanner, Chuck knew the type - without the Intersect, he realised.

“We’re clear,” Dad announced after a minute. “So… tell me what happened!” He smiled as he sat down at the desk and took out a notepad, like a real doctor. Or psychiatrist.

“Well…” Chuck began, “we were in a village, captives of drug dealers, and they were about to hurt Sarah when I suddenly knew all sorts of martial arts…”

*****

“...and that was the last time the Intersect activated like that,” Chuck finished. 

Dad nodded. “It looks like this is triggered by stress.”

“I was plenty stressed in other situations,” Chuck retorted.

“But not in lethal danger,” Sarah pointed out.

“I wasn’t in lethal danger when it activated the first time. But you were about to be tortured,” Chuck replied.

“That’s a good point,” Dad agreed. “If it were just triggered by lethal danger, the Intersect wouldn’t have activated I think. And it’s not simply strong emotional reactions, either, that trigger it.” He rubbed his chin through his fake beard. “Fascinating, really.”

“I’m so glad that my situation is interesting,” Chuck said in a flat voice. Sarah giggled but put her hand on his arm, and he smiled at her, “Sorry. It’s just… It’s bad enough to know I have a computer in my head that can turn me into a stone-cold killer, but to not know how it activates?” He shook his head. “I need to be able to control it, not the other way ‘round.” Or he’d never be a competent spy.

“Yes, you’re right, Chuck,” Dad told him. “But It’s not all that bad. For one, we know that the whole thing is still evolving. It wasn’t active for months after you received the Intersect, was it?” He smiled. “Your brain’s still adapting to the Intersect’s neural connections, I think. Things will probably change for some time still.”

Chuck wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “What if the Intersect is adapting to my brain?”

“Oh, I designed it to do that.”

“What?” Chuck gasped. What if it was taking over his mind? Changing him? “It’s influencing me?”

“What? No, no. It shouldn’t do that. It should only offer options and information, without influencing your decisions.” Dad frowned. “Of course, by offering information and options, it is influencing your decisions, but not mind-control. Everyone is influenced by the information and options they have at their disposition, after all.”

Dad was a brilliant scientist, but his bedside manner and personal touch really needed some work, in Chuck’s opinion. “So, I’m not going to turn into a killer without scruples, am I?”

“You shouldn’t,” Dad replied. “Well, not because of the Intersect, in any case.”

“Very reassuring, Dad,” Chuck said.

Sarah chuckled as she squeezed his hand in support.

“Now, let’s scan your brain and check if there are no physiological changes.”

“‘Physiological changes’?” Chuck gasped. That was possible?

*****

“Scans are clean. Your brain chemistry is normal as well. Blood pressure had some spikes, but nothing lasting,” Dad said an hour later as Chuck dressed again.

“And the verdict?” Chuck asked.

“As I said before: It’s too early to tell,” Dad replied. “It’s all still in flux. We’ll have to repeat this after your next episode.”

That made it sound as if he were sick, in Chuck’s opinion. Or going crazy.

“But I think we can assume that it’ll keep activating in lethal danger, or other, similarly stressful situations.”

“Nice. So in the event of me killing my co-workers, I’ll have an excuse.” Chuck snorted.

“Which you can’t use in court, though,” Sarah pointed out. “It’s top secret.”

Not that any such incident would go to court, anyway. The CIA would cover it up.

“So, all we have to do is wait for the next mission, or the next apocalypse,” Chuck said, sighing.

He didn’t like the way Dad cleared his throat at that. “Speaking of missions,” his dad spoke up. “I’m done with the groundwork for faking my death, so to speak.”

Oh.

“Which means the next step is framing the mark,” Sarah said.

“Exactly.”

*****


	24. The Family Trouble

**California, Los Angeles, January 16th, 2008**

“I’ve picked a suitable mark,” Orion explained in the small motel room on the south side of the city. “Marco Gonzàlez.” He hit a key, and a picture of a middle-aged man with a moustache appeared on his laptop’s screen. “He’s an independent drug smuggler with contacts to various cartels in Mexico.”

Sarah nodded. “That means there will be plenty of suspects for his murder.”

He didn’t flinch at her wording, though she saw that Chuck did.

“Indeed. And since he has been laundering money and investing into legal businesses for some time, it would look quite convincing that he would have wanted to secure the services of Chuck. I already inserted a few inadequately hidden tech support calls from a business he indirectly controls,” Orion went on.

“We’ve been tracking Chuck’s Nerd Herd calls for a while,” she pointed out.

“You have?” Chuck said. “I mean, of course you have. But… only since I received the Intersect, right?”

“Yes,” she told Chuck with a smile. Sometimes, his lack of cynicism was very endearing.

“I’ve already taken care of the CIA’s records as well,” Orion told her.

She managed not to frown. Even though Orion was Chuck’s father and an ally, it was still vexing to be reminded of how easily he could hack the Agency’s systems.

“Uh… Gonzàlez is a drug smuggler?” Chuck asked.

“With all that entails,” Orion replied. “Including the murder of competitors, witnesses, subordinates that might become a problem or decide to quit, and, of course, police officers who won’t accept bribes.”

“In Los Angeles?”

“Both here and in Mexico. The Los Angeles Police Department is not quite as riddled with corruption as the often underpaid Mexican police forces, but the local cops are by no means immune to bribes and blackmail.” Orion shrugged. “No one will miss him.”

Sarah wasn’t quite sure about that claim - many successful drug lords had a loving family, and often a large number of dependents who would definitely miss them and their support. That wasn’t altruism on the part of the drug lords, of course, but pragmatism to foster loyalty among their subordinates. But telling Chuck that would be counter-productive. They needed to lay this affair to rest, after all.

“Ah.” Chuck didn’t sound too convinced, but he looked less disturbed.

“And his death will disrupt one of the established supply channels for cocaine in Los Angeles and Southern California,” Orion went on. “It won’t stop the drug trade, of course - though I can’t think of anything that would. Nothing which would be politically feasible, in any case.”

“So… what exactly do we need to do to frame Gonzàlez?” Chuck asked. “If you’ve already hacked his system.”

“I haven’t, actually.” Orion frowned. “Gonzàlez is practising better computer security than most CIA operatives I know, and keeps his key computer systems offline.”

“That isn’t exactly an option for the CIA,” Sarah felt forced to point out. “Information has to be distributed and often as quickly as possible for operations.” With the exception of a few top secrets, of course. And some missions that never had a paper or electronic data trail to begin with.

“Point,” Orion admitted with a grin that looked far too similar to Chuck’s for Sarah’s comfort. “But it still means that we need to access Gonzàlez’s files to convincingly frame him. And that means physically entering his home.”

“Provided he has his files there,” Sarah said.

“He will have a way to access his files - in his business, a significant delay for such a task could spell his ruin,” Orion countered. 

It was true, but Sarah couldn’t help wondering just why Orion was so familiar with the drug trade.

“So… where is his home?” Chuck asked.

Another picture appeared on the screen. A high-rise, all glass and steel.

“That’s the new apartment tower in Downtown!” Chuck exclaimed. “We’ve had a few calls there when new tenants had trouble with their overpriced home entertainment systems.”

“Exactly,” Orion said. “You’ll be familiar with the layout of an apartment there.”

“It also has one of the most advanced security systems on the civilian market,” Chuck added. “And that’s just the building, not the different apartments.”

“Yes,” Orion admitted. “On the other hand, we won’t have to contest with a private army guarding a villa.”

That was a small consolation, in Sarah’s opinion. Although… “Some of those apartments will be available for rent. If you can secure one, we’d have a base of operation.”

“Yes. Although I fear I’ll need some help arranging the cover identities for that. I could do it, and I’ve done that before, but in this case, I think we need to minimise the risk that this might end up connected to me or the CIA.”

“That doesn’t leave us with many choices, does it?” Chuck said.

Orion nodded. “I was thinking of asking your friends for a little help.”

“Our friends? Do… oh. The Council?” Chuck asked.

“Yes.”

Sarah didn’t like that. It would make them even more dependent on the Council and create leverage against them. On the other hand, it would let her see how good the Council was at this sort of work.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, January 16th, 2008**

“So… do we tell Bane about this?” Chuck asked as Sarah took the second-to-last turn before their home.

“About Orion? No,” she answered without hesitation. 

“Uh…” 

She suppressed a sigh. “We’ve told her about vampires and magic, but we don’t know yet if she can be trusted.”

“Ah.” He didn’t sound convinced. She could tell. And she knew that he wanted to come clean to Bane - he didn’t like hiding things from a team mate.

“This is too important to risk. Remember what we discussed about Casey?” she reminded him.

“He realised the truth himself, or would have,” Chuck retorted.

“Bane won’t,” Sarah said. The other spy was still dealing with the revelation that the things that go bump in the night were real.

“Won’t she notice that we’re up to something?”

That was a potential problem, yes. But there was a solution, too. “Morgan will have to keep her busy,” she told him.

Chuck stared at her.

She reined in her annoyance. “He can ask Phil for help. She’ll want to know as much about magic as possible.”

“I’ll tell him, then. Once I can catch him alone. And after checking for bugs,” Chuck added with a smile before she could remind him.

She smiled in return as she parked her car. He’d make a fine spy.

“Now we’ll have to tell Casey,” she told him after getting out of the car.

“Ah… alright.” He grimaced a little, she noticed. But they couldn’t leave Casey out of this - they needed his help.

And so, instead of returning home, they went straight to the other agent’s apartment.

He had a small pair of cutters in hand when he opened the door, Sarah noticed. Preening his bonsai? Or fiddling with a bomb, perhaps? With Casey, it was hard to say.

He didn’t ask what they wanted, nor did he invite them inside - he merely stepped aside with a grunt and let them enter.

“Good evening,” Chuck said. “Oh… is that a bonsai?”

“Don’t touch it!” Casey snapped.

Chuck jerked back. “I was just taking a closer look!” he complained. 

Sarah cleared her throat. They weren’t here to discuss Casey’s hobby. Or his hangups and insecurities. “We’ve met with Orion,” she said.

“What did he say about Bartowski’s brain? Is it going to melt?”

“What? No, it’s not going to melt!” Chuck said, raising his voice. “It’s too early to tell what exactly is happening,” he added.

“So, your brain could still melt,” Casey replied.

Sarah rolled her eyes. “That’s unlikely,” she said. “Orion estimates that it’ll keep activating in lethal danger, or other, similarly stressful situations.”

“Like sex?”

Sarah refused to take the bait. Casey was deliberately being crude, she realised.

“What? No, sex doesn’t trigger the Intersect!” Chuck hadn’t realised that, alas.

“He’s trying to get a rise out of you, Chuck.”

“What? Uh, I mean… oh.” Chuck trailed off.

He looked cute when blushing, she noted, not for the first time. “We’re not here to talk about that.”

“Especially since there are no results, yet,” Casey replied. “So, did he pick a target, then?”

Chuck looked surprised - he shouldn’t underestimate Casey. The man was a spy, not the simple soldier he often played. 

“Yes, he did. Marco Gonzàlez,” she told Casey.

“Ah.”

“You know him?” Chuck asked.

“I know _of_ him. Never got the chance to plug him, but it seems my luck just changed,” Casey said with a feral grin. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We know where he lives, and we have a rough plan to infiltrate the building, but we’ll need support from the Council for our cover,” Sarah summed up.

Casey nodded. “He doesn’t want us to use CIA resources. Smart.”

Sarah nodded. “And he’ll get to judge the Council’s capabilities.”

Chuck blinked, then slowly nodded.

Yes, Chuck, your Dad’s a spy as well, and playing spy games, she thought. Out loud, she said: “This is his address according to Orion.”

Casey glanced at the picture and the map. “That’s going to a bitch to withdraw from, should things go pear-shaped.”

“We could base jump if we’re in a hurry?” Chuck said with a shy smile.

“Really? How many base jumps did you do so far?” Casey snarled.

“Well… none?”

Then why was he… oh. “Do you really want to bet your life on the Intersect being programmed to base jump?” Sarah asked. “Spies aren’t usually trained for that.”

“It’s not exactly the same as parachuting,” Casey said. “Close, but not the same.”

“Uh… that’s a good point.” Chuck grimaced. “So… stairs or lift?”

“Lift shaft,” Casey replied with a grin. “Stop the car above you, then rappel down quickly.”

Sarah saw Chuck’s expression and said: “Spies generally are trained in that technique.”

“I hope that was included it in the Intersect,” Chuck said.

“Didn’t your dad give you a list?” Casey asked.

“Ah…” Chuck winced. “He didn’t do my version. There were some changes, some self-selecting algorithm, probably some tinkering with the database... He doesn’t know exactly what I can do and can’t do when it triggers. And without knowing how to trigger it safely, we can’t test it.”

Casey shook his head as if that was Chuck’s fault.

It wasn’t, and Sarah would make sure to tell Chuck that.

After they finished some more preliminary planning.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, January 17th, 2008**

“A spy mission you can’t tell Kirsten about?” Morgan asked, a little too loudly for Chuck’s comfort - the Buy More’s Entertainment Display Room wasn’t really sound-proof.

“Not so loud,” he whispered in response. “Yes. It involves my dad.”

“Oh.” Morgan blinked for a moment. “And you don’t trust her?”

Chuck tilted his head slightly - like he had seen the general do. “Do you trust her with that?” It was his dad, after all.

“Err…” Morgan frowned as he seemed to mull it over. “Well…”.

“You don’t, do you?”

“I don’t distrust her,” Morgan protested.

“But you don’t know if she can be trusted,” Chuck said. It was obvious, really.

“I’m working on that,” his friend said.

“Good. Please keep at it. Keep her busy,” Chuck told him.

“Another distraction?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “I can do that.”

“Ask Phil for help if you need to. This cannot get back to the CIA, Morgan. This is big.”

“I know, I know. You can count on me.” His friend nodded. “Err… Are you going to test her? You know, feed her fake information and see if she betrays us? Because if you do, she probably expects it. Well, not probably - she does. She told me about this sort of stuff,” Morgan went on.

“Ah.” It seemed that the exchange of information hadn’t been as one-sided as Chuck and the others had assumed - but what if Bane had an ulterior motive for telling Morgan about spy tactics? Chuck still wasn’t very comfortable with this kind of spy mind games. He doubted he’d ever be, too. And he didn’t want to become like Casey, whose only reason for not proposing to kill Bane was that the CIA would blame them.

*Yeah.” Morgan nodded with a serious expression. “That’s the really annoying thing about all of this, you know? That I don’t know what to believe.”

Chuck nodded with a wince - that was a very familiar feeling.

“How did you know you could trust Sarah?”

Chuck winced even more. “Uh… I just did, you know? Sort of.”

“You trusted your heart?”

That sounded too sappy. Like in one of the series Ellie watched when her and Devon’s shifts didn’t align with each other. “It was a calculated risk,” he lied.

“Ah.” Morgan nodded, and Chuck couldn’t help feeling as if his friend had heard a lot more - or something different - than what Chuck had intended to say.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, January 17th, 2008**

The bonsai had been placed back on a shelf, Chuck noted as he took a seat in Casey’s living room, next to Sarah. Next to an autographed picture of Ronald Reagan. Chuck still didn’t know if that was just part of Casey’s cover or his real life. As far as the man had a real life - even his Intersect file was redacted, after all.

And yet, they trusted him. Far more than Bane, whose file was more or less complete, as Dad had confirmed.

“Earth to Bartowski. Wake up,” Casey said.

Huh? “I wasn’t asleep!” Chuck protested. “I was gathering my thoughts!”

“You must be a real scatterbrain if that took you so long,” the agent replied.

Was that a dig at the Intersect in his brain? Chuck wondered. Or just a biting comment?

“I’ve arranged for a set of fake IDs from the Council,” Sarah said. “They should arrive within a week, or so he claims.”

“Did he request our biometric data?” Casey asked.

“No.”

“Willow probably already has access to our CIA files, so she could take the data from there,” Chuck pointed out. He didn’t think she had used magic to scan them, or something. “So, the IDs should be solid.”

Casey scoffed but didn’t comment. He probably was jealous. “What about Bane?” he asked, staring at Chuck.

“Uh…” Chuck coughed. “I talked to Morgan. He’ll keep her distracted during our mission.” After a moment, he added: “He, uh, also told me that she probably expects a test, or a trap, to see if she’s loyal.”

“Of course she would,” he heard Sarah mutter.

“She won’t risk her cover for minor secrets. It’s either Orion’s identity or magic,” Casey said.

“And should she find out about Orion, she won’t pass on that information through electronic channels,” Sarah added.

“If she decides to pass on that intel,” Chuck pointed out. They didn’t know if Bane would do it, did they?

“If she does, she’s dead,” Casey said. “And she knows that.”

Chuck was tempted to quote Moff Tarkin in response. But Tarkin had been wrong, hadn’t he?

“So, if she wants to betray us, she will probably try to take us out, first,” Sarah said.

“Uh.”

“Don’t fret, Bartowski,” Casey said with a sneer. “We’re prepared for that, And she knows that as well.”

That wasn’t really as reassuring as Casey probably thought it was. All those mind games… Perhaps Chuck had to check with the Scoobies how they handled working with Spike. Before the vampire got a soul, of course.

Because if you couldn’t trust your allies, then that was of the bad, as Xander and the other Scoobies would say.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, January 20th, 2008**

As she glanced at the spy flirting with Grimes, Sarah wished, not for the first time, that Bane had a different cover story than ‘employee of Wienerlicious’. She knew that it made it easier to keep an eye on the spy, but it also made it easier for Bane to keep an eye on them - not that a trained spy would have trouble avoiding surveillance anyway.

But she really didn’t like how Bane’s presence intruded on her morning break with Chuck. This was supposed to be their time to relax and enjoy each other’s presence, not spend it watching Bane and Grimes.

“Is something wrong?” Chuck asked.

She blinked. Had she let her thoughts show on her face? No. But Chuck had still picked up on her mood. “No,” she said, then glanced over at Bane again.

“Oh.” He looked surprised, then pensive. Did he understand why she was annoyed? “I didn’t notice anything,” he said in a low voice.

He didn’t. She smiled. “Me neither,” she replied. “It just feels a little crowded here.”

“Oh!” Now he got it and started to smile as well. “We, uh could have our break somewhere else. Like… Uh.”

She chuckled. There weren’t many places that would be called romantic near the Buy More. Well, not unless you were a teenage mall rat. “Dinner tonight?”

“Ah, sure!” He beamed at her. “The usual table?”

“Yes.” She took a sip from her soda to hide another glance at Bane and Grimes. They looked like a typical couple still in the honeymoon phase. But that didn’t mean anything. Bane was good enough to fake it, and Grimes could have fallen for her despite knowing that she was a spy - he was naive enough to be fooled easily by Bane.

They still didn’t know if they could trust the spy.

Well, Bane wouldn’t try to do anything incriminating here, under Sarah’s eyes. So she might as well enjoy the rest of her break with Chuck. She set her glass down and smiled. “And perhaps a little dancing, afterwards?”

“Sure! I’d love…” He was interrupted by his phone ringing. “It’s Ellie,” he told her after a glance, wincing. “Sorry.”

“It’s OK,” she replied, watching him take the call.

“Hi, Sis!”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“No, I was about to…”

“Tonight?”

“No… I mean… yes… Look… I have to ask Sarah.”

What? She frowned. That didn’t sound good.

“Ellie wants to have another ‘wedding preparation dinner’ this evening,” Chuck told her as he handed her the phone.

There went their romantic evening.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, January 20th, 2008**

“You know, you could have told her that we had plans.”

Standing in front of her dresser, Sarah rolled her eyes before turning to frown at Chuck, who was standing in the door to their bedroom. “After you didn’t?” That would have made Ellie blame her.

“Uh…” He winced. “You know how Ellie is when she has something on her mind.”

“Yes, exactly.” And Ellie was Chuck’s sister - he could handle her. Should, at least.

He sighed. “Sorry, but…” He shrugged.

“Yes.” She nodded and went back to dressing.

“We could still go dancing afterwards,” Chuck said.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “You remember the last such dinner?”

“Uh… I had successfully suppressed the memories,” he said with a lopsided grin.

She had to laugh at that. “It shouldn’t be as bad today,” she said. “I think we went over the most controversial points already.” Or so she hoped.

*****

“...and Devon thinks we should take the white napkins while I think the turquoise ones will fit the colour on the walls better.”

“All I said was that white usually goes with everything. I’m not set on it.”

“Then we’ll take turquoise ones. And the matching plates.”

“But white plates look better.”

Sarah had been wrong. The devil was, as the saying went, in the details. She forced herself to keep smiling as Ellie turned towards her. “What do you think, Sarah?”

“White is a classic,” she said, “but a little colour doesn’t hurt.”

“See?” Ellie nodded at Devon. “She agrees.”

“That didn’t sound like agreement to me,” Devon retorted. “Chuck?”

“Uh, what?”

“What do you think?” Devon cocked his head, looking at Chuck.

“Uh… I think both will look nice?”

“See, he agrees!” Devon said, smiling at the scowling Ellie.

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment - not that either of the two would notice - and sighed as the argument she had expected started in earnest. If this continued, then she doubted that there would be a wedding at all.

*****

“Guys! Guys!” Chuck almost waved his arms, trying to interrupt Ellie and Devon’s argument. “Guys!” He had to stop them.

“What?” Ellie snapped, turning to glare at him.

“Uh…” He swallowed, then smiled. “How about we take a break from all the planning?” Before they broke up over napkins and plates. She huffed, but his smile didn’t waver. Much. “Please?”

“Yes,” Sarah chimed in. “I think we’ve talked enough about the banquet.” 

Well, Chuck hadn’t talked much about it, or at all. Neither had Sarah, now that he thought about it. “Alright!” He stood and started collecting the plates and cutlery, with Sarah quickly joining him, and waving off Ellie when she wanted to help as well.

“Perhaps we should have hired a wedding planner,” he whispered as he started filling the dishwasher.

“They’d still have the last word on the decor,” Sara replied on a low voice.

“But they’d sort it out with the planner, not with us,” Chuck pointed out.

Judging by Sarah’s expression, she disagreed. Drat. “Look,” he said, glancing towards the living room, to check if Ellie and Devon were still frowning - glaring - at each other, “we have to do something before they plan this wedding into ruin or something.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” she retorted with a toothy smile. “Without dragging us even more into this?”

“Uh…” He blinked. He hadn’t actually thought that far. But there had to be something. He gasped. “Yes!” He turned around and marched into the living room. “Ellie! Devon! As an early wedding gift, we’re giving you a weekend in Malibu!”

“What?” They were staring at him, obviously surprised. So was Sarah, he noticed. “Uh. There’s this great resort there, the Malibu Beach Inn.” Which he had seen in an ad earlier today for the first time, but no one had to know that. “So, you spend a weekend there, and if you like it, you can spend two weeks there during your honeymoon, hm?” He did his best to smile at them.

Devon grinned. “That’s very generous of you! Thank you.”

Ellie, on the other hand, frowned at him. “This isn’t a plan to get us out of town because there’s another apocalypse threatening the city, is it?”

He blinked, then shook his head. “No, no. I swear, Ellie, this isn’t a plan to get you out of the city. We just want to be sure that you’ll like your wedding gift, you know?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, stepping up him and wrapping her arm around his waist, “it would be a shame if we’d pay you two weeks in a hotel you don’t like.”

Chuck had to struggle not to wince when he felt her pinch his side. Apparently, Sarah wasn’t fond of his plan.

Ellie, though, was smiling now. “That is so thoughtful of you!”

“Of course.” Chuck hoped that she wouldn’t bring up Christmas gift he had bought for her in fifth grade. He hadn’t known that Ellie hadn’t been serious when she said she wanted a kitten. And he hadn’t known that most demons considered kittens a delicacy.

But the argument had been dealt with, and that was worth whatever two weeks and a weekend in the inn cost.

*****

“Did you check the prices before you picked the hotel?” Sarah, back in their apartment, asked after a quick search on her laptop.

“Uh…” Chuck stopped pulling his shirt off. “It was a spur of the moment thing.”

“So, you didn’t.”

That didn’t sound good. Not at all. “Uh. How much will this cost us? Me, I mean. It was my idea, and I didn’t ask you, so I’ll pay for it,” he blurted out.

Without a word, she turned the laptop so the screen was facing him.

He blinked. That was… “Uh…” That was a lot of money.

“Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t spend much of your CIA salary so far,” Sarah replied.

Chuck didn’t quite whimper as he nodded, but he came close. “Well, it’s not too expensive if it counts as couples therapy, right?”

She snorted, shaking her head.

He pouted. She could at least admit that he had saved them from being dragged into another row.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, January 23rd, 2008**

“Agents, Mr Bartowski, you’ve got a new mission,” Beckman said in her usual no-nonsense manner. “We’ve discovered that the schematics for a new prototype scanner have been stolen from a CIA laboratory and the copies have been deleted. The thief has been apprehended, but he had already handed over the stolen data to a courier. Fortunately, we’ve had surveillance on the courier due to an unrelated case and so we’ve managed to track him to the apparent location where he’s supposed to make the drop.”

She tapped a key, and a new picture appeared on the screen next to her head. A very familiar picture, Chuck realised with a sinking feeling.

“The courier, Keith Adams, a former race car driver, is staying in the Malibu Beach Inn this weekend,” Beckman continued. “He’s booked Thursday to Sunday.”

Chuck closed his eyes. No.

“Your mission is to apprehend whoever is coming to pick up the stolen schematics and secure the data.”

No.

“Shouldn’t we secure the data as soon as possible to minimise the risk of losing it?” Casey asked.

“No, it was deemed too much of a risk. We need to catch the courier’s contact without them growing suspicious. We suspect this is a ploy of Fulcrum, so this is of crucial importance,” the general explained.

Damn.

“Mr Bartowski, is there a problem?”

“Uh…” Chuck winced. “My sister and her fiancé are spending the weekend in the hotel there.”

“Really.”

It was remarkable how much annoyance the general managed to pack into a single word, Chuck noted.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, January 23rd, 2008**

“Well… that could’ve gone better,” Chuck said after they had returned home. Beckman had torn a strip off his hide. So to speak. The woman could be nastier than… no, Snyder had still been nastier when he got going.

“It could’ve gone worse, too,” Sarah replied. “We’re still on the mission.”

“And Ellie and Devon’s weekend hasn’t been cancelled,” Chuck pointed out. It might be a little petty, but he’d have hated to have to cancel the weekend and spend all that money for nothing. And explaining the reasons to Ellie...

“Because the general thinks we’ll be finished with the mission before they arrive,” Sarah retorted.

“Uh…” Chuck blinked. “You don’t seem to share that view?” It had sounded logical to him that the bad guys would get the transfer done as soon as possible. Thursday evening. Friday at the latest.

“There’s always the possibility of delays. Flights get missed or cancelled, accidents happen, mistakes are made…” Sarah shrugged as she sat down on the couch. “Good spies will plan for that.”

The general wasn’t a good spy? Chuck frowned.

She must have noticed his reaction since she added: “That’s why we’ve got the whole weekend booked ourselves.”

“Ah. And that’s why we didn’t simply replace Ellie and Devon,” Chuck said. The general had explained that Fulcrum was probably monitoring the hotel already.

“That’s one explanation,” Sarah said. 

“One explanation?” he echoed her. She was pressing her lips together in that manner of hers she did when she had bad news, he noticed.

“She should have made us cancel their reservations,” Sarah said. “The risk of that drawing attention from Fulcrum is minimal. Certainly less than the risk of them breaking our cover, and Fulcrum’s operatives catching on.”

“What?” He gasped. “But why would the general…” he trailed off. “Oh.”

“Yes. If they get involved, she might try to push for protective measures involving them,” Sarah told him.

“And I’d owe them.” Or worse.

“Yes.”

He sighed. “I don’t like these sort of games.” He really didn’t.

“That’s part of a spy’s life,” she told him. “Wheels within wheels.”

“Well, at least we won’t have to deal with that once we’re working for the Council,” he said.

She pressed her lips together once more.

“What?” He knew the Scoobies. He trusted them.

“We still haven’t gotten the cover IDs,” she said.

“Because Willow’s, uh, in need of rest after an incident in Marseille,” he pointed out. “And she’s their best hacker.” Probably their only decent one, too.

“Do you think they haven’t already been preparing fake IDs for us, ever since we got in contact with them about working for the Council?” she retorted. “With the means at their disposal?”

“Uh…” That would have been logical. 

“They either are stalling for some reason, or they need Willow to do something before they hand the IDs over,” Sarah explained.

“Oh.” That sounded a little paranoid to Chuck. But pointing out that this could’ve been an honest mishap was probably not a good idea, Chuck decided. That might make the Council look unprofessional in her eyes.

On the other hand, the Scoobies had been at that for years. Wouldn’t they have planned ahead?

Drat. Chuck was turning paranoid himself.

*****

**California, Malibu, Malibu Beach Inn, January 24th, 2008**

“So… this looks pretty nice for a Buy More training event,” Chuck joked as they got out of their car in front of the hotel.

“Play your role, nerd,” Casey’s voice sounded in his ear.

Chuck frowned. The CIA had arranged for their cover at the Buy More - his and Casey’s, Sarah and bane were supposed to be sick - after all, so that had been an obvious joke. Perhaps too obvious? It wasn’t as if anyone could overhear them. “I’m Charles Carmichael, got it.” He could do that role in his sleep by now. Mostly.

Sarah smiled as she hooked her arm into his, and they entered the lobby while one valet parked their sports car and another fetched their luggage.

He pretended not to notice them - he was a rich software entrepreneur, after all, and used to this sort of treatment. And he didn’t blink at paying the hotel’s exorbitant rates. Even if Chuck did, in private. He might have earned a lot of working for the CIA, but money had been a little tight for most of his life after his parents had disappeared. Spending so much on a few days still felt wrong.

He cleared his throat. He was Charles Carmichael. And he was on a mission. Time to check in. And then start the surveillance. The parts Bane, working as a temporary waitress in the pool area, and Casey from the outside, couldn’t do, at least.

And hope that Fulcrum was doing the transfer tonight. Or tomorrow before the evening, at least. Because that was when Ellie and Devon would arrive.

*****

Half an hour later, they were strolling through the hotel - ‘doing recon’, as Casey called it over the radio. Chuck still wasn’t sure if the hotel’s amenities were worth the price, but it certainly was a very nice hotel. Better than the resort in Jamaica, he decided after a trip through the lobby and a peek at the pool area.

“Did you flash on anything?” Sarah asked in a low voice as they headed to the bar.

“No,” he replied. He would have told her, of course - if she had missed it. Although... she might be asking for the benefit of Casey and Bane.

“The courier hasn’t left his room yet,” Casey announced over the radio in Chuck’s ear.

“Hasn’t ordered room service either,” Bane added over the same channel. “He’ll probably dine in the restaurant. Easier to make contact with the agent that way.”

Yes, having your contact walk up to your room and knock wouldn’t be very subtle. Even Chuck could see that. “Well, we’ve got the main stairs and lifts covered - we’ll spot him once he appears,” he said, lips hidden behind the rim of his cocktail glass.

“You better.” Casey was, as usual, very encouraging.

“So… what do you think?” Chuck asked, leaning against the bar in a relaxed pose. Well, as close to relaxed that he could manage on a mission.

“About?” Sarah replied. She glanced at him but then returned to watching the lobby.

“The hotel,” he said. “For Ellie and Devon, I mean.” They couldn’t just wait without talking, could they? That would endanger their cover, wouldn’t it?

“I think she’ll be impressed by the amount of money you’re willing to spend.”

“Really?” he perked up.

“Not favourably, though,” Sarah added, tilting her head to look at him with a rather sardonic expression.

“Oh.” Of course - Ellie was a practical woman, after all. Still, this was related to her honeymoon, so perhaps that would sway her. And she might also appreciate that he could spend so much money on her thanks to his new job.

Which, he realised with a sinking feeling in his stomach, would mean that she would be even less happy about their eventual employment by the Council.

A swallow of his cocktail - worth the price, at least - dealt with his stomach. He wasn’t a teenager any more; Ellie would have to accept that he made his own choices in his life nowadays.

“There.” Sarah’s hissed announcement interrupted his thoughts.

He turned his head and saw Adams walking down the stairs. The former race car driver looked very fit for his fifty years, though Chuck thought that the man’s tan looked a little overdone. And sunglasses in the evening? Indoors? That was just tacky. Almost as tacky as the golden lighter Adams was toying with while… Chuck blinked. And flashed. He saw a laboratory. Schematics. Technical data. And explosions. 

“The lighter,” he whispered as soon as he recovered.

“What?”

“It’s a custom-made CIA device, with a solid-state drive built into it. And a self-destruction function based on an NSA incinerator tied to a biometric scanner!” he added with more than a little concern. Those things were nasty.

“What? Are you sure?” Casey asked.

“Yes. Well, I flashed on the lighter’s model, but they might’ve disabled the self-destruct,” Chuck replied.

“I doubt that,” Casey said with a scoff.

So did Chuck, but he’d had to mention it.

“That will make retrieving the data more difficult,” Sarah commented as they watched Adams enter the restaurant. “Can you disarm it?”

“Uh…” Could he? He closed his eyes for a moment, going over the data in his head. “Yes,” he said, with more confidence than he felt. He could do it - he had the tools, the knowledge and the skills. It was like bypassing the security of a sophisticated phone that the owner had accidentally locked.

Only that phones generally didn’t explode with enough force to completely destroy a car if you made a mistake.

Sarah looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Good. We won’t make a move until we’ve identified his contact, though.”

“Of course,” he agreed. He had been briefed, after all.

“He’s sitting alone at a table,” Bane reported. Apparently, she had transferred to the restaurant staff.

“Good, keep him covered,” Casey said.

“Won’t be too hard - he’s staring down my cleavage.”

Chuck almost snorted at the comment before he saw Sarah’s expression. She wasn’t amused. “So… let’s go eat dinner?” he asked with his best smile.

“Yes,” she agreed, relaxing. “Let’s.”

Chuck put his now empty glass down on the bar counter, nodding. “Good. I’m feeling a little…”

“Bartowski? Chuck Bartowski?”

He blinked. A woman was headed straight towards him, trailed by an amused-looking man. Both well-dressed, but that was a given in this hotel.

She was beaming at him. “It is you! Wow, I would never have expected to meet you here!” She turned to address the man with her. “Ralph, this is Chuck Bartowski, we went to high school together!”

He finally recognised her. Aphrodesia Walker - a member of Cordelia’s clique in Sunnydale who he hadn’t seen since graduation. Apparently, she had a better memory for people than he had. And she had just blown his cover.

This was bad. Very bad.

*****


	25. The Hotel Dilemma

**California, Malibu, Malibu Beach Inn, January 24th, 2008**

“Aphrodesia Walker. How nice to see you,” Chuck lied, forcing himself to smile. What was a former member of Cordelia’s highschool clique doing here of all places? Should he have lied and claimed he was Charles Carmichael? But Aphrodesia wasn’t Harmony; she wouldn’t have bought that. And now Sarah was glaring at him. Damn.

“It’s Brown,” she said, holding up her hand, displaying a ring. “Freshly married to Ralph!”

Chuck didn’t have to flash to know it was very expensive. “Congratulations,” he said.

She fake-gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry we didn’t invite you - we didn’t know your address.”

What she meant was that he hadn’t been important enough - not rich, not popular - for her to care about, Chuck knew. “This is Sarah,” he said. “Sarah Walker.”

“Oh, we’ve got the same name. Well, we had the same name,” Aphrodesia said, smiling. “We’re not related, though, are we?”

“No, we aren’t,” Sarah said with a smile that looked more honest than Aphrodesia’s, but was as fake, as far as Chuck could tell. “I’ve researched my family tree a while ago.”

“Ah.” Aphrodesia nodded. “I should do that as well, I think. We should do it,” she said, smiling at Ralph. “Imagine what we might find!”

“Right,” her husband agreed.

“So, what are you doing here?” she asked, turning her attention back to Chuck. Or, rather, to his clothes. And to Sarah.

He needed an excuse. “Ah… Well, it’s a little embarrassing, you know.” He flashed her a smile as she leaned a little forward.

“Really?” She beamed at him. “Oh… you were on the way to the restaurant, right? We too! Let’s dine together!”

Obviously, Charles Carmichael’s taste in clothes and girlfriend was good - expensive - enough for her. Chuck nodded with a fake smile. “We’d love to.”

As they turned to take the lead, he glanced at Sarah - and winced. She was glaring at him and showing her clenched teeth. 

Drat.

*****

What was Chuck thinking, blowing their cover like this? Sarah forced herself to smile before the other woman turned around to address them. “Table for four, at the window, OK?”

“Yes,” Sarah lied. She sent another glare at Chuck as soon as the woman turned around again.

“Sorry!” he mouthed at her as they followed the Browns to their table.

“Who are those people?” Casey asked through the radio.

“She’s an old school friend of Chuck’s who recognised him,” Sarah replied in a whisper.

“She’s not a friend,” Chuck insisted.

“Can it, Carmichael,” Casey replied. “And fix this before it ruins the mission.”

They reached the table, and Sarah moved quickly to ensure she took a seat with a good view of Adams’s table and the rest of the restaurant. 

“So… ‘embarrassing’?” the woman prompted with an eager smile as soon as everyone was seated.

“Ah, yes,” Chuck said, nodding. “You see, we’re here because of Ellie, my sister. You remember her?”

“Of course I do,” the woman obviously lied.

“So, she’s recently gotten engaged to a colleague at work - she’s a physician, a neurologist, in Los Angeles, you know - and, well, we’re planning to gift them two weeks here as a honeymoon,” Chuck said.

“Oh? So you’re here to check out the hotel?” Ralph asked.

“Yes. Although under a fake name - wouldn’t want the hotel to know about this, right?”

The woman nodded emphatically at Chuck’s bullshit story. Adams hadn’t talked to anyone yet, not counting the waiter.

“Only, Ellie and Devon were stressed from the wedding preparations, so we spontaneously booked them for the weekend,” Chuck went on. “After we had already booked under a fake name. So, we’re kind of trying to hide from them, or they might feel as if we’re watching them. And some people might think we’re cheating on each other, or something.”

“Ah.” The woman nodded a little too emphatically again. “And what have you been doing since graduation?”

“Oh, I went to Stanford. Computer sciences. After graduation, I started working as an IT consultant. Security systems, data analysis, custom search algorithms - there’s a lot of demand for experts in that field.”

“Well-paid, too, I’d say,” she replied.

“Well...” Chuck shrugged. “Supply and demand, right?”

Ralph nodded. “Words to live by. I’m in investment banking myself.”

“And you, Sarah?” Brown asked.

“I’ve got my own business. Gastronomy,” Sarah said.

“Ah.” 

Sarah didn’t like her smile. Not at all. “And you?” she asked with her best fake smile.

“Oh, I worked as a style consultant until I met Ralph,” Brown replied.

“Ah.” Sarah returned the woman’s smile with interest.

Ralph cleared his throat. “So… you went to high school together? In Sunnydale?”

“Yes.” Chuck nodded. “We were in the same year. She was a member of Cordelia Chase’s clique.”

Sarah noted that Brown didn’t like being referred to in that way. Good to know.

“And he was part of the nerds,” the woman replied.

“Good old Sunnydale high school. It was such a blow when it blew up at our graduation,” Chuck said with a sigh.

“It blew up at your graduation?” Ralph blinked, then stared at his wife. “You never told me about that!”

“Ah, I don’t like talking about it. Or thinking about it. I lost a friend in the explosion,” Brown said. “Poor Harmony.”

Her? A friend of Harmony? And she didn’t even know that the woman was now a vampire? Yeah, right.

“Oh, I’m sorry, darling.” Ralph grabbed her hand. “I didn’t want to bring up sad memories.”

“It’s OK. It’s been years, after all.” Brown sniffled for effect.

Well, Brown wouldn’t be a good spy. Or a good actress, in Sarah’s opinion. That was the worst acting she had seen since Grime’s attempt to convince Chuck that he needed an extra day off work.

*****

“...of course we won’t tell Ellie about your presence, right, Ralph?”

“Sure, darling.”

It was going well, in Chuck’s opinion. Thanks to a little fast-talking, he had managed to solve this potential problem and save the mission. And there hadn’t been too many embarrassing high school stories told - mutually assured destruction worked, after all. “Thank you,” he said, smiling.

“Oh, of course - I know how it is, having to deal with family,” Ralph told him. “My mother wanted to run our wedding for us.”

Aphrodesia winced at that, Chuck noted. He nodded. “It’s a lot of work, organising a wedding. I would have hired a wedding planner, but…” He shrugged. “Ellie’s been the mom of the family since our parents disappeared years ago.”

“Ah, right,” Aphrodesia nodded as if she had just remembered that the Bartowskis had effectively been orphans in Sunnydale. “I mean… I didn’t want to bring it up,” she added, not quite convincingly.

“Thank you,” Chuck told her.

“Wow… I mean, I’ve heard about the sinkhole, but…” Ralph trailed off, looking embarrassed. 

“Oh, we were already living in L.A. when that happened, or Stanford, for me,” Chuck said. “But a couple friends of mine were among the last to get out before the whole town was sunk.”

“Oh? That must have been terrifying.” Ralph shook his head. “Are they OK?”

“Oh, yes,” Chuck replied. “They’re now living in England, most of the time, working for an NGO.”

“You mean Summers and the others?” Aphrodesia asked. “England?”

“Yes.” She must not have kept in touch with anyone from her old clique, Chuck realised - Cordelia would have told her friends about the Scoobies, before her death. But then, apart from Aura, none of the Cordettes had shown up to Cordelia’s funeral, had they? Well, Harmony probably would have, if the funeral had been held at night.

“Wow. Who’d have expected that? Although… wasn’t the librarian they always hung out with from England?”

“Giles,” Chuck told her. “And yes, he’s from England. Old Money,” he added, just because of her attitude.

“Oh? An honest British Lord?” Ralph asked.

“What? And he worked at Sunnydale High School?” Aphrodesia shook her head.

“He, uh, had a falling out with his family and wanted to see the world,” Chuck said, wincing - and hoping this wouldn’t get back to Giles. “But they reconciled. And he’s upper class, but not actual nobility, I believe.” Though as far as Chuck knew, the leader of the Watchers Council often was knighted, once a sufficient pretext could be found. He shrugged. “But I didn’t really know him well, you know - he wasn’t really fond of computers.” Which was an understatement, of course.

“Unlike Willow,” Sarah cut in. 

“Oh, Rosenberg. The biggest nerd in school,” Aphrodesia said, giggling. “Cordelia was always on her case.”

“One of the smartest people I’ve met,” Sarah said with a toothy smile. “And I’ve met a number of Chuck’s friends and teachers from Stanford.”

Aphrodesia frowned at the subtle rebuke and took a sip from her wine to mask her reaction, or so Chuck thought. He hadn’t known Sarah was so fond of Willow as to defend her like that, though. “She’s also quite known in the information technology scene,” he added.

“Really?” Aphrodesia’s frown grew more pronounced.

“Yes,” Chuck went on, “she discovered quite a number of network security exploits.” He winced when he felt someone - Sarah - pinch his thigh. He glanced at her, but she was looking at Adams. Who was getting up from his table.

Oh. And they were stuck here with the Browns. He cleared his throat, trying to think of an excuse. Perhaps…

Sarah rose next to him, holding up her cell phone. “I’m sorry, but I need to take this call - work,” she said. “I don’t know, though, how long it’ll take me to sort this out. Please don’t wait for me.”

She turned and walked away before the Browns could say anything in response, leaving him with them.

He smiled as best as he managed. “Sorry, she works very hard… Did Aphrodesia tell you about the time there was a cheerleader audition and a girl caught fire?”

*****

Sarah kept the phone pressed to her ear even after she had left the restaurant. There were cameras, after all - and it was also a good cover. Adams was already halfway up the stairs - was he returning to his room? He hadn’t passed on the prototype, so his contact hadn’t met him, yet. A dead drop was possible, but she thought that unlikely. If Fulcrum were planning to use a dead drop for this, they wouldn’t have sent Adams to a hotel.

But his contact could be waiting in his room, having sneaked in during the meal. 

They would have to observe the room and check. And with Bane currently working as a waitress, they hadn’t many options to do that.

“I need to check that on my laptop,” she said, a little more loudly than usual, then started up the stairs, after Adams. Mumbling more fragments of a fictional conversation, she kept him in view - they had placed surveillance in the hallways and stairs, but that wouldn’t help if they had to move quickly to tail someone making contact with the courier.

But Adams didn’t talk to anyone, or touch anyone, before he entered his room. Which was facing the sea, therefore denying anyone a good spot to look into it. But that also meant there was not much of a risk of anyone observing her room.

Not from the outside, at least. A few keystrokes displayed the feed from the camera covering the balcony of Adams’s room - from the side, unfortunately- on her laptop, but no one was climbing out there. She quickly pulled her dress off and slipped into dark grey jeans and a tight sweater as well as trainers. A cap to hide her blonde hair followed, and she was ready.

But she hesitated a moment. If Adams had a camera covering the facade, this would alert him. No. He was a courier, a driver. Not a spy.

She went out, crouching, and quickly looked for anyone out on the balconies with a view of her route. Seeing no one, she slid over the railing and started climbing.

There were two balconies between hers and Adams’s. The first was dark - as was the room connected to it. No sweat; Sarah traversed it without stopping. The second, though, was illuminated from inside.

She hung from the railing and peered through the bars. Oh. That was an affectionate couple. But also a distracted one. She pulled herself up and over the railing, landing on the balcony without a sound. A last check - they still weren’t paying attention to anything outside their bed - and she dashed past the door, then onto the railing.

Another leap and a quick move later, she could peer into Adams’s room. Where the man was watching tv on his bed.

She moved a little; the risk of being spotted increased, but she had to change her position to cover the entire room. Adams was alone. A former race car driver turned courier, watching sitcoms in his room? By himself? Well, there went plan b, aka “plan Bane”. If Adams was content watching tv in the evening, he would probably smell a trap if a maid came on to him.

“Room’s clear. He’s watching a sitcom,” she whispered into her radio, then started the climb back. They’d have to keep the balcony and door under surveillance during the night, of course, but she had a feeling that Adams’s contact wouldn’t make a move tonight. They probably hadn’t even arrived yet.

*****

Sarah returned after fifteen minutes. Chuck didn’t quite sigh with relief - he wasn’t desperate; he still had some tales from Stanford left, and neither he nor Aphrodesia had mentioned Cordelia so far - but he was grateful for the distraction anyway. “Hey, honey!” he exclaimed. “All problems sorted out?”

She nodded. “It’s admirable that my staff work late if they feel they have to close a contract, but it’s not so admirable that they needed my help to actually do so,” she said as she sat down next to him. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh, it’s OK,” Ralph said. “I’ve been there myself. He smiled as he took Aphrodesia’s hand. “She’s the first woman I met who could stand my working hours, but I had to promise her not to work on our honeymoon.”

Chuck wasn’t the best expert on women, but he would’ve thought that was pretty obvious. He certainly wouldn’t want to even think about work on his honeymoon. Or be able to, he added with a glance at Sarah.

Fortunately, the dinner ended soon after dessert and the Browns left for their own room. “I guess she remembered why they’re here,” he heard Sarah mutter as she and Chuck made their way to their own room.

That was a little catty, in Chuck’s opinion. Something Cordelia would have said if she were feeling nice. “Well, we hadn’t talked since high school,” he said.

“And not much during high school, either,” she replied. It wasn’t a question.

“Uh… yes,” he admitted. “But it was the same with Cordelia.”

“I somehow doubt that the new Mrs Brown will decide to join the fight against demons,” Sarah remarked as they entered their own room. 

“Well, at least she won’t rat us out to Ellie,” Chuck retorted.

“Probably not.” Sarah nodded. “But we can’t count on that.”

What? “Do you think we’ll have to tell Ellie why we’re here?” Chuck didn’t want to. She’d worry. And might do something stupid as a result.

“I hope not,” Sarah said.”

That sounded less reassuring than Chuck would have liked.

At least he had managed to preserve his cover. Or so he hoped.

*****

**California, Malibu, Malibu Beach Inn, January 25th, 2008**

“Adams must be scamming his employer out of a paid vacation,” Chuck commented as he glanced at the lunch menu the hotel was offering. “I bet he’s scheduled contact for Sunday.” Otherwise, the courier would have handed over the prototype already, and the mission would be over. Mostly.

“He’s maintaining his cover,” Sarah replied, putting her menu down and shifting on her chair near the pool. “Sticking to schedules that fit a vacation makes it harder to trace such couriers or spies.”

Chuck looked at her over the rim of his sunglasses, and she grinned. After all, she had introduced the concept of ‘maintaining your cover’ to him by taking out a sailing yacht on the CIA’s dime. He huffed, and she giggled.

“Perks of the job,” she said.

“It’s a problem for us, though,” he replied. “Ellie and Devon will arrive in the evening.” Or late afternoon, depending on how fast they drove.

“Brown’s more of a problem,” Sarah pointed out. “Ellie knows that we’re spies.”

“But she won’t believe that we’re here by coincidence,” Chuck retorted.

“Why not? What possible reason would we have for wanting them to be present during a mission?” Sarah looked honestly puzzled.

“Sis isn’t always logical,” Chuck told her. “Especially not when it concerns family.” Though, to be fair, some of the excuses Chuck and Morgan had tried to use on Ellie in their teenage years might have played a part in that. ‘Occam’s Razor’ was still a four-letter word, as far as she was concerned. Or a sure sign someone was trying to scam her.

“Well, we’ll have to talk to them, then.”

“Once they arrive, right.” Chuck nodded.

Sarah looked at him, then tapped her phone. What… Oh.

He felt dumb. “I’ll call her during her lunch break.”

*****

Sarah smiled. Sometimes, she envied Chuck for having a family - well, their fathers were kind of alike, both in trouble with the law and absent since their teenage years - but not always. This was certainly one of the times she didn’t envy him.

“What do I say if she wants to cancel the trip?” Chuck asked.

“Do you think she would?” Sarah didn’t believe so herself. Both Bartowskis hated to waste money, especially so much of it. And the general wouldn’t like it either - for a different reason, though.

“Good point,” Chuck acknowledged. He sighed. “Well, it should be safe.”

“Yes,” Sarah agreed. Fulcrum were traitors and ruthless, but they were professionals. Killing civilians was, barring false flag operations and similar circumstances, unprofessional. It drew too much attention from authorities, which no spy agency liked. And this was a simple drop-off, not an assassination mission. At least for Fulcrum. “So… have you decided on your lunch?” she asked. 

Chuck didn’t reply right away. He was staring at a woman walking through the lobby towards the reception, she noticed. No, not staring. _Flashing_.

He blinked, shaking his head slightly, “That’s Emma Bones. A former CIA spy. Retired five years ago for medical reasons, but went freelance afterwards. Her speciality is, uh, honeypot missions.”

Sarah frowned. Retired for medical reasons, but working freelance? Someone either made a deal to cover up something shady, or someone pulled strings to get her out of the CIA. Probably Fulcrum - her presence here couldn’t be a coincidence. “That might explain why Adams was watching reruns last night - if she’s supposed to be his vacation affair, having a one-night stand could complicate things.”

“Ah.” Chuck nodded. “Uh… so… she’s his contact?”

“Probably. We’ll have to verify it.” She leaned back a little. “Casey, did you catch that?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” the NSA agent replied through the radio. “I’ll inform the general.”

“Copy. We’ll be waiting for further instructions,” Sarah mumbled. It was the general’s call whether they were to tag Bones to track her or to capture her. Sarah would prefer to arrest the woman - Bones was ex-CIA, so she knew how things worked and would be checking for tails and bugs.

“So… we need to observe both of them now? Adams and Bones?” Chuck asked.

“For now,” Sarah confirmed. Bones just finished checking in and was now headed to her room - presumably.

“I’m tracking her through the cameras,” Bane informed them over the radio. “I’ve heard of her; she’s good.”

Of course, Bane would have heard of Bones. Probably studied her old missions in training, Sarah thought.

“If she’s not in a rush, she won’t make contact with him until tomorrow evening,” Bane went on. “That looks less suspicious, and she won’t have to spend more than one night with him.”

Sarah refrained from reminding Bane that she knew how such things worked. “Keep an eye on her. She might break with the pattern,” she told the other spy instead.

“So, uh… what do we do?” Chuck asked. “Casey’s contacting the general, Bane’s on surveillance…” 

“We eat lunch,” she told him with a smile. “And you call Ellie.”

“Uh.”

*****

Chuck rejoined her at the pool after lunch. Sarah could tell from one look at his expression that his call hadn’t gone well. “She’s still coming, right?”

He sighed and nodded as he sat down next to her. “Yes. I didn’t even mention the possibility, and she still told me that she doesn’t want to ‘waste so much money’, or so she claims.” He closed his eyes. “What a mess.”

“Look happy,” she told him. “Your school friend is swimming and might notice.”

“She’s not a school friend. If she didn’t think I was rich now, she wouldn’t give me the time of day - she’d probably complain to the manager about my presence, instead,” he replied. “She’s as egocentric as Harmony, just not as dumb.”

Sarah had known that, of course - she knew the type. Chuck had mentioned it before, too. And she knew Harmony. But they were on a mission. “Well, since she thinks you’re now rich enough to be her friend, she will pay attention to you. So better look happy before she thinks there’s trouble.”

“Right, right.” He flashed a quite obviously fake smile at her.

She chuckled in response. “Almost.”

His next smile was better - good enough. “So… is our courier still playing tourist?”

“Yes.” Adams was lounging near the bar, his second drink - of the afternoon - in hand. “Nothing suspicious happened yet, but…” she trailed off. There was Bones at the entrance to the pool area, in a bikini that probably covered less than her sunglasses did.

She leaned a little forward, masking the movement by grabbing her own drink. “Bones arrived,” she reported in a whisper. “She’s closing in on Adams.” Who had the lighter in his shirt pocket.

“Copy,” Casey replied.

“I’ve got eyes on them,” Bane added.

The freelance spy swayed her hips as she walked. Just enough to draw that extra bit of attention her bikini’s lack of fabric might have missed. And she had drawn Adams’s attention, alright - the man was smiling at her as she drew closer. Text-book contact-making. Almost a little too obvious.

Or not. Bones walked past Adams without glancing at him. “No contact,” Bane reported, unnecessarily - Sarah had seen that herself.

“Perhaps they don’t want to be too obvious,” Chuck speculated as Bones took a free deck chair on the other side of the pool. 

Sarah wasn’t certain if she agreed. Playing hard to get might draw a bit more attention to the scene than some casual flirting. And the way Bones was dressed - and the way she put on sunscreen - she wouldn’t exactly fit the role anyway.

“Aphrodesia won’t like that,” Chuck commented.

“Hm?”

“Bones is sitting close to Ralph.”

Indeed. A little too close - she had picked the free chair which was closest to the Browns, actually. “Right.” Had Bones missed that Ralph was with his wife here? A former CIA-spy should have noticed that the chair on the other side of Ralph was almost touching his, and that there was a towel on it with the logo of a cosmetics brand. Ralph, though, hadn’t missed her - he was sneaking glances, Sarah noted. And he looked nervous.

“Uh. Here she comes.”

And indeed, Aphrodesia was leaving the pool. Not as slowly as she had entered it - and she headed straight to Ralph.

“Do you think she noticed that he was eyeing Bones?” Chuck asked.

“I don’t think she cares whether or not he did,” Sarah replied. Aphrodesia struck her as the kind of woman who’d assume any attractive woman not in a relationship - or even those who were - was a rival. 

And yes, Mrs Brown immediately took steps to monopolise Ralph’s attention, asking him to put sunscreen on her before she had finished towelling off. Probably asking all sorts of questions, too, to keep him busy.

The woman was really rather insecure. On the other hand, seeing as how Bones was watching the display, perhaps she had cause to be wary. Sarah narrowed her eyes. Flirting with a married man was a little much as far as a smokescreen went. If a jealous wife made a scene, then that would draw a lot of attention. And if things escalated…

And Ralph looked very nervous. Guilty, too. Too guilty for merely sneaking glances at an attractive woman at a pool. Oh. 

“Bones isn’t here for Adams,” Sarah said. “She’s here for Ralph.”

*****

“She’s here for Ralph? That’s a problem!” Chuck said.

“I don’t see the problem,” Casey replied over the radio. “Bones’ll keep the Browns from interfering with our mission.”

“Yes, Bane agreed.”

“Guys… you don’t know Aphrodesia. She’ll try to use us to help keep Ralph from straying.” Chuck knew how Cordettes thought. And unlike Cordelia, Aphrodesia didn’t seem to have changed at all since high school.

As if she had heard him, Aphrodesia stood, pointing at them, and tugging on Ralph’s arm.

“He’s right,” Sarah agreed as the other woman all but dragged her husband with her.

“Get rid of them,” Casey snapped. “We here to find Adams contact, not to do couple’s therapy.”

That was easier said than done, of course. Chuck knew that. Aphrodesia wasn’t Cordelia, not even close, but she had the same attitude and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Well, unless you hit her over the head with it, perhaps literally, but that would make a scene and draw attention. From Adams as well.

“Chuck! Sarah! How do you like it here?” Aphrodesia asked, a little too loudly, and sat down on the chair next to Chuck’s, pulling Ralph with her.

“It’s very nice,” Chuck replied. “Well worth the price. Better than the resort in the Caribbean that we visited over the holidays.”

“Oh?” The woman perked up.

“Yes. Great beaches, but the staff was a little underwhelming, and the town was a tourist trap,” Sarah said.

“Ah, that’s the Caribbean for you!” Aphrodesia launched into a rather prejudiced tale of her and Ralph’s own vacation in the Caribbean, a cruise, last year. Since she was more interested in dragging Ralph into the conversation as much as possible, Chuck used the opportunity to check on Bones and Adams. Adams was just ordering another drink - and staring down Bane’s cleavage. Bones was… about to hit the pool. And keeping her attention on them. No, on Ralph.

Who, Chuck belatedly noticed, was looking nervously at her when Aphrodesia wasn’t paying attention. Oh. Of course! It all made sense. He had to inform the others!

“I’m going to get a drink at the bar,” he said, getting up. “Do you want anything?”

“Just a coke,” Sarah told him. “Thank you.”

“Mineral water,” Aphrodesia said.

“Bloody Mary,” Ralph ordered. And ignored his wife’s glare. Definitely nervous.

As soon as Chuck was out of earshot, he whispered. “Guys! Bones and Ralph know each other! He’s much too nervous in her presence.”

“We figured that out already,” Casey replied. “Probably had an affair and now comes the blackmail.”

Oh. Chuck pressed his lips together. So much for his analysis. Of course, the veteran spies would’ve picked up on that already.

Sighing, he continued towards the bar - and almost collided with a man leaving it. “Sorry,” he said quickly as he took a step back.

“No problem,” the man replied, smiling at him.

And Chuck flashed. Corpses. Bodies. Murders. And drinks and food. And a name. Marcel Boucher.

“Are you alright?”

He blinked. “Oh, yes, sorry,” Chuck managed to say. “I think I got a little too much sun.” He forced himself to laugh as the other man turned away. Then he used the radio again. “Guys! The man I almost ran into? He’s Marcel Boucher! A hitman specialising in poison!”

And he was headed towards Adams.

“Shit!” Casey cursed. “This isn’t a drop, but a trap. They want to get rid of Adams. They must have found out that we fingered him. Stop Boucher and keep Adams alive!”

Damn. Boucher was already sitting down next to Adams. Next to the man’s drink. And with Sarah stuck in Aphrodesia’s claws, and Bane currently on the other side of the pool serving drinks to a group of tourists, that left Chuck to intervene.

He clenched his teeth and quickly ordered the drinks for Sarah and the others, keeping Boucher in sight. The man hadn’t made his move yet. Probably waiting until Adams felt at ease. But all it took was one distraction, and Boucher could poison that drink.

Think, Chuck, think! How do you save Adams? Without breaking cover? Oh! His eyes widened as he had an idea and he turned back to the bartender. “And two pieces of that delicious cheesecake, please!”

A minute later - Chuck’s neck almost felt strained from the constant glances over his shoulder - he was on the way back to Sarah ad the Browns, carrying a tray with the drinks and the cake. Now all he had to do was to make it look natural.

And he had to hurry - he saw Boucher’s arm move when Adams was looking at Bones getting out of the pool as if she was in a steamy movie scene. The courier was reaching for his drink without looking. His poisoned drink.

Chuck stepped up his pace. Five yards. And Adams was about to drink. “Whoa!” Chuck yelled, launching himself forward in a stumbling run. “Watch out!”

Boucher pulled away in a smooth motion, rolling off the chair. Adams wasn’t as quick and froze, drink in hand, a moment before Chuck’s tray hit him in the chest, spilling drinks, soda and cake all over him.

Chuck fell to the ground. “Sorry! I’m so sorry!” He didn’t have to fake his groan - he had hit the deck chair in a rather painful way.

But the poisoned drink had been spilt as well, and Adams was safe. Angry at Chuck, but unpoisoned. “Look at my shirt!” the man snapped.

“I’m so sorry! I will, of course, pay for the cleaning. Or a new shirt?” Chuck babbled.

“What? Forget it! I need to take a shower. And change!”

Chuck smiled as Adams turned away and walked towards the hotel. 

Then he caught Boucher’s glare. Uh oh.

*****

“Now that brings back memories!” Brown exclaimed as Chuck took a dive. “Like in high school!”

Sarah made sure to ‘accidentally’ step on the woman’s foot when she got up. “Chuck! Are you alright?” she exclaimed.

By the time she reached him, Adams was already walking away, presumably to his room. “Good work,” she whispered as she made a show of inspecting Chuck.

“But I think Boucher grew suspicious,” he replied. “He looked as if he wanted to kill me.”

She nodded. They’d have to take out the assassin anyway, but this made it personal. “Limp a little,” she told him. That would give them an excuse to leave the Browns. And they could follow Adams. Well, limp after him, but no plan was perfect. 

They managed to keep the man under surveillance anyway, with the help of Casey, until he entered his room.

“Do you think that Bones was the distraction meant for Adams?” Chuck asked once they were in their room, pulling off his own stained shirt.

“I doubt it,” Sarah replied after a moment. “She could have distracted him by responding to his advances or by flirting. If the poison had a delayed effect, she wouldn’t have been a suspect even after his death.”

“Ah.” Chuck nodded. “That makes sense.”

“We cannot dismiss the possibility entirely, though,” she added.

“Oh.” After a second, he went on: “So, what do we do now?”

Sarah smiled thinly. “We take out Boucher and capture Adams. With Fulcrum planning to kill him, he should prove cooperative.” If the man believed them, of course. On the other hand, once he was in the CIA’s custody, he would be a loose end, so cooperation was his best chance to survive anyway.

But they had to capture him, first. And deal with Boucher.

Which, as Sarah found out quickly, though not unexpectedly, wasn’t easy. The assassin didn’t actually drink or eat anything at the pool bar, so Bane couldn’t use his own methods - although with non-lethal poison - against him. It had been a long shot anyway - Boucher might be able to detect even supposedly undetectable poisons, given his experience.

But the man was very cautious, almost paranoid. He was constantly looking around, even to the detriment of his cover, in Sarah’s opinion. Did he suspect anything already? That would mean Chuck was in danger.

At least he was keeping his distance from Adams after the courier had returned to the pool. Though it meant they had to keep eyes on both now. Something the Browns weren’t helping with at all.

“Did you apologise to your victim?”

“Of course I did,” Chuck replied, sounding more than a little annoyed at the implied condescension,

“It was merely a small accident. No harm was done,” Sarah cut in.

“Apart from your ankle,” the woman replied.

“Oh, it’s manageable. I just don’t want it to get worse, you know?” Chuck patted his calf above the bandage they had wrapped around his ankle.

“And his supposed ‘victim’ wasn’t hurt at all,” Sarah pointed out.

“He certainly doesn’t act like it,” Ralph added, nodding towards the courier, who was nursing his next drink. 

Adams did seem to be a little too fond of alcohol, Sarah noted. If it had started to affect his work, perhaps that was the reason Fulcrum wanted him dead. Or one of the reasons.

Boucher got up. Was he making another attempt? No. He didn’t even go near the courier or the bar.

“I’ve got eyes on Boucher,” Casey informed her a minute later through the bud in her ear. He had switched from Overwatch to the hotel - hey needed him here, with two targets now. “He’s going to his room.”

That left Adams, who didn’t seem to plan to leave the pool area anytime soon. Probably related to Bane’s continuing attempts to ‘innocently’ draw Ralph’s attention.

Which left Sarah and Chuck stuck with the Browns.

She would almost prefer another assassination attempt.

*****

“So... how do we capture Boucher and Adams?” Chuck asked as they got ready for dinner in their room. If he had to sit through another afternoon with Aphrodesia…

“We’ll break into their rooms during the night,” Casey said from where he was watching the feed from the security cameras covering the hallway to Adams and Boucher’s rooms.

Chuck understood the necessity for the surveillance but he wished the man had a room of his own. Chuck had liked the privacy he and Sarah had enjoyed until now. Wait… “So, we capture both of them, right?” 

“If possible,” Casey said with a twisted grin.

“But the objective is to capture them, isn’t it?” Chuck pointed out.

“That changed the moment you identified Boucher. He’s an assassin for hire. He won’t know anything about Fulcrum,” Sarah, stepping out of the bathroom where she had changed, replied.

“He’s an obstacle, nothing more,” Casey added.

“Oh.” An obstacle they’d be removing. Chuck swallowed. Boucher was a murderer. A poisoner. The Intersect data also told Chuck that the man had no qualms about collateral damage. But to murder him in cold blood...

“Getting cold feet?” Casey glared at him.

“What? Of course not!” Chuck protested. “I’m just thinking about how best to get to him.”

“Don’t waste your time. We’ve already plotted the hit,” the NSA agent told him.

“You have?” When? And what was Chuck doing, then?

“Yes. You’ll be the distraction for Adams,” Casey said.

“We’ll go to him to apologise once more,” Sarah explained. “And then hit him with a sedative so we can ’help’ him.”

“Ah.” That was… well, it wasn’t murder. It was OK.

Chuck nodded. “I can do that.”

“You better do, nerd.” Casey just had to have the last word, didn’t he?

*****

“There are Ellie and Devon,” Chuck whispered half an hour later. His sister and his future brother-in-law had just entered the restaurant. He checked his watch. “They must have been speeding, or L.A. traffic wasn’t as bad as usual on a Friday afternoon,” he added and noted with relief that they weren’t seated even near the Browns or Adams.

“Boucher still hasn’t left his room,” Casey reported. “I don’t like this.”

“He must be preparing something, then,” Chuck pointed out.

“Really? I had no idea.”

Casey was good at conveying sarcasm in the most biting way, Chuck noted, not for the first time. He clenched his teeth, wishing he had a good comeback that wouldn’t sound unprofessional.

He focused on the excellent meal, instead. He wasn’t sure if it was worth the money, but his steak was perfectly done, and the side dishes were a marvel. Even better was that Aphrodesia wasn’t constantly talking, not to him, at least - she was talking Ralph’s ear off, as far as he could tell; Bones was sitting at the table next to the Browns, and Ralph looked ready to commit suicide to escape. It was amusing - as long as you weren’t in the middle of it.

And now came dessert! Oh, the treats on the cart… He blinked. The waiter pushing the dessert cart looked a little like…

“Boucher,” Sarah hissed. “He’s slipped out and disguised himself as a waiter!”

And Ellie and Devon were waving the assassin over, diverting him from his path to Adams!

He had to do something. Anything. And right now! Something that didn’t break his cover or ruined the mission. Something…

He spotted the couple two tables over, having crêpes flambées for dessert. Yes! “I’m doing a distraction,” he whispered, getting up. “Be ready to take them out.”

“What?” Sarah gasped. “Chuck!”

But he was already on the way, passing the next table. And faked a stumble to tackle the waiter setting the dessert on fire. “Sorry!” he yelled as the cognac bottle spilt on the white table covers of the next table, as planned.

A moment later, the table was ablaze, the people backing off, everyone was screaming.

Then the sprinklers were set off, and panic set in as everyone got wet and scared.

Perfect. Chuck rolled off the waiter and came up in a crouch, looking around. There! Boucher was one the ground, Casey acting as if he was helping the man. And Adams…

...was trying to flee but had found the exit blocked by everyone else trying to get out. Sarah was coming up behind the courier, too.

But the man turned and started to run towards the restaurant’s terrace. Which would take him past Chuck.

Hidden behind the toppled table, Chuck pushed the dessert tray into the man’s way, causing him to slip and fall. And before Adams managed to recover, Chuck’s sleep hold had taken him out.

It was easy to hoist the ‘poor fainted man’ on his shoulder and carry him out of the restaurant.

Past the glaring, soaked and fuming - metaphorically, fortunately, not literally - Ellie.

Uh oh.

*****


	26. The Game Night Part 1

**California, Malibu, Malibu Beach Inn, January 25th, 2008**

Chuck winced but kept walking. Ellie was smart. She wouldn’t make a scene and endanger their cover in public. She would let him have it, from both barrels, in private. Ellie knew how to keep grudges. Morgan could tell you all about it.

But he had a mission. And Adams was kind of heavy. And the lighter Chuck had taken from him might be holding an NSA Incinerator charge that would turn him, Adams and everyone else within a few yards to ashes if it went off.

So he hurried towards the exit, almost colliding with Casey, who was carrying Boucher. Now, if everything had gone according to plan, then Casey would have been driving a fake ambulance to ‘take the two unconscious victims to the hospital’. But with Casey having been needed in the hotel…

There was the ambulance! Sarah, wearing a paramedic’s jacket, was driving! Chuck beamed at her. 

“Be glad that she reacted quickly to your harebrained stunt,” Casey grumbled next to him as they rushed over to the ambulance.

“I had no choice,” Chuck retorted through clenched teeth. “I had to do something.” Ellie and Devon’s lives had been at stake.

The NSA agent scoffed. “Next time, don’t act on your own.”

But it had worked out perfectly. Chuck swallowed the obvious retort, though, as Casey dropped Boucher into the ambulance, then pushed Adams on top of him. “I’ll handle things from here on,” he snapped and bound men’s wrists. “Get out and play the happy couple again, Walker!”

Chuck held the door while Sarah handed the jacket to Casey and climbed out. “Grouchy, is he?” Chuck muttered after the ambulance had left.

Sarah made a sort-of-agreeing noise, which wasn’t really agreeing.

“I’m just saying,” Chuck went on, “that it worked. No one but the bad guys got hurt. And we got all our objectives.”

“We were lucky,” Sarah replied as she took his arm. “But it could have gone wrong.”

“How?”

“If we hadn’t been close enough to Boucher, or if Adams had been closer to the exit and had managed to escape in the confusion. Or if his lighter had gone off.”

“Uh. Right, the lighter. I kind of need to disarm it, still,” Chuck admitted.

“I thought so,” Sarah replied. “That’s why we’re not going back to the hotel yet.”

“Ah.” Right. Smart. “But won’t that endanger our cover?” he asked.

“A couple sitting at the beach, recovering from the shock, and the man fiddling with his lighter?”

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “But, uh… shouldn’t you keep your distance? If I, uh, make a mistake?” And blow myself up?

“That would look weird,” she said. In a lower voice, she added: “I trust you.”

“No pressure,” he replied. But he was smiling.

They found a secluded nook - a bench surrounded by bushes. At least, Chuck thought as he took out the lighter and a set of tools, no civilians would be hurt if I mess up. And he’d escape Ellie’s lecture.

He chuckled at that. Then he got to work. According to the lighter’s schematics, the detonator was triggered by opening the case the obvious way. But there was a hidden latch on the front, which would reveal a tiny switch to disarm the charge. He wet his lips, then pressed down on the spot in front and flipped the switch.

Nothing happened.

Releasing the breath he had been holding, he opened the lighter, then took a look at the inside. “Ah… they modified it. There’s an additional module wired to the memory.” He took out another tool and studied the connections. “Probably… yes, it’s an encryption module.” Clever - a mini-router to encrypt the data, inaccessible from the software side. Unless you knew it was there, and bypassed it, or used it to access the memory, you wouldn’t get usable data.

He pressed his lips together as he mulled it over. “Never try to solve a hardware problem with a software patch,” he mumbled, then started to connect his phone to the encryption module.

It took him ten minutes, but he managed to crack the module’s bios and download the data from the lighter’s memory. A quick check revealed the schematics and production notes. Whew. “We’ve got it,” he told Sarah.

“Great.” She smiled at him, then gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Let’s go back to the hotel, then.”

“Ah… shouldn’t we drop off the data, first?” he replied.

“We can hand it over to Bane,” she told him, standing and pulling on his hand. “You’ve done enough.”

He nodded and let her pull him up. He had, hadn’t he?

And, he realised, halfway to the hotel, he had done most of it without the Intersect triggering.

But when they arrived at the hotel, where the fire had been put out in the meantime and firemen were still walking around in the cordoned-off restaurant, he realised something else: They would be blaming him for the fire.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, January 26th, 2008**

“Come on, Chuck! It’s not so bad.”

Chuck frowned at Sarah. It was bad. Really bad. “They threw us out! And they’re still billing us for the rooms - and the fire!” He crossed his arms and leaned back on his chair.

“Well… you did start the fire,” she pointed out as she added another peeled orange to the blender.

“Barely any damage was done,” he replied. “A table, some scorch marks on the floor, a broken chair…”

“Dozens of guests fleeing in a panic? Trampling each other?”

He winced. “Technically, that’s not damage done to the hotel.”

“Well, the CIA will pay the damages,” she said as she turned the blender on.

“It was a necessary sacrifice,” he said.

“I’m sure the general will agree. Here!” She poured half the juice into a glass and put it down on the table in front of him.

“Thanks.” He took a sip. “Was that sarcasm?” If the CIA docked his pay for this, then things could get a little tight, money-wise.

“No. She understands making the call in the field.”

“She does?” He blinked as he grabbed a slice of toast. “It’s just that Casey wasn’t of the understanding.” He coughed but didn’t correct himself. Stanford had taken care of his ‘Sunnydale-ism’ for the most part, but, sometimes, they still crept up.

“Casey is always critical of everything,” she told him.

“With the exception of Our Lord and Saviour, Ronald Reagan.”

That made her laugh. “But you did good, Chuck. And Ellie and Devon are enjoying their weekend.”

“Unless Aphrodesia is trying to use them to replace us,” Chuck said. “Speaking of - what about Bones?”

“What about her?” Sarah asked.

“Shouldn’t we be doing something about her? I mean… she’s trying to blackmail Ralph or something. It’s not as if I care about Aphrodesia’s marriage, not really, but Bones is a spy, so…” Chuck shrugged.

“The CIA will keep an eye on the situation. Bane’s still there, too.”

“Ah.” He blinked. “Won’t our cover be in danger if Fulcrum looks into the incident?”

“That’s why it’s a cover,” she told him. “If needed, we can replace it.”

“Oh.” He hoped that they wouldn’t have to - he had grown fond of Charles Carmichael, suave man of means. 

“Besides,” she went on, “you won’t have to face Ellie for two more days.”

He grimaced, and she giggled. That was a faint consolation. But, perhaps, Ellie would have calmed down a little until Sunday evening. And pigs might fly. “Well, all that doesn’t change the fact that we’re kind of stuck here since we’re supposed to be at the training weekend. Although Los Angeles is so large, the odds of us encountering anyone who might recognise us are rather low.”

“Well, that’s true. Although I was thinking of a few ways to pass the time indoors…” Sarah said, grinning at him.

He blinked. She was wearing that short bathrobe, he realised. And probably not much else, he added when she bent a little towards him, smiling. “Ah.” He wet his lips. “Right.”

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, January 27th, 2008**

Looking out of the window, Chuck rubbed his aching shoulder. Sarah hadn’t just had that particular ‘something else’ in mind, yesterday. They’d also done some sparring. And working out.

And the Intersect not only didn’t consider dying from exhaustion a danger that would make it trigger, but it also didn’t grant stamina or muscle tone. Both had to be earned the hard way - a way Chuck had just started to travel down. Or up - he wasn’t the best with metaphors when he had sore muscles and was dreading his sister’s return.

Which was weird to begin with. He wasn’t a teenager any more. He wasn’t a failure any more, either. He was a spy - sort of. An intelligence asset. An analyst, at least - or the CIA would like him to become one. He was a future Watcher. Watcher-spy. He had his own life and his own future.

But Ellie was his older sister. And would remain his older sister for the rest of their lives.

Which was also kind of threatening, now that he thought about it. 

No, he would tell her that it hadn’t been his fault, just a coincidence. And that everything had been under control until the poisoner had appeared in the restaurant…

No. He needed a better story. And - he winced as he looked out of the window - he needed it right now since Ellie and Devon had just arrived.

They weren’t headed to Chuck and Ellie’s apartment, though - he watched them enter their own, first. Both were smiling and looking happy, which made him smile as well. It seemed his plan had worked - and Ellie seemed to have calmed down over the weekend as well. 

Then Ellie stepped out of her apartment and came straight towards his apartment. And she wasn’t smiling any more. Drat.

He was at the door before her, opening it with a smile. “Ellie! You’re back!”

“Yes,” she replied, glaring at him. “And we’ve got something to talk about.”

“Uh…” So she was holding a grudge. “What do you mean?”

His sister huffed as she walked - marched - past him into the living room. “Hello, Sarah.”

“Hi, Ellie!” Sarah wasn’t as enthusiastic as she sounded, Chuck knew. On the other hand, she wasn’t as anxious as himself, since this was his fault. Or so she claimed.

“Ellie wants to talk,” he said.

“With both of you,” his sister added.

“Ah.” 

Chuck shot a tight smile at Sarah as he sat down on the couch. No escape for her, either. Now… he had to take the initiative. “It was all a coincidence, Sis. We only received the mission in Malibu after I had already booked your stay,” Chuck blurted out.

Ellie, who had started to pace, stopped and looked at him. “I know, Chuck.”

“You know? I mean, yes… I mean, good?” he babbled.

“Yes. Sending us to a hotel where you were on a mission would have been reckless and stupid. And you’re not stupid,” Ellie explained.

He could hear the ‘but you’re reckless’ as plain as if she had said it but he nodded in agreement anyway.

“However, setting fire to the restaurant? What were you thinking? Did you consider the effect a panic would have, or what would happen if the fire spread out of control?” Now she was glaring at him. “Why would you do such a thing? And don’t tell me that it was an accident; I know you’re not that clumsy.”

“Uh… it was an emergency,” he replied. “I needed a distraction.” And he wasn’t actually clumsy. 

“And arson was the first thing that came to mind?”

Well… fire solved a lot of demon-y problems. And setting fire to something was a classic distraction in many novels and a few TV series, too. ‘Kill it with fire’ was almost the default solution among the Scoobies. Right after ‘cut off its head’ and ‘beat it up’.

“Chuck!” she snapped. “Did you consider what you’d cause? What if someone would have had a heart attack? Or smoke poisoning?”

He hunched a little. “I panicked,” he admitted. “But…”

“The waiter with the dessert cart was planning to poison people,” Sarah cut in.

“What?” Ellie’s eyes widened. She wouldn’t have forgotten that she had ordered dessert as well.

“He was an assassin sent to silence a witness,” Sarah went on. It wasn’t quite correct, but it wasn’t exactly a lie, either.

“And he was planning to poison everyone?”

“Possibly. We foiled one attempt already,” Chuck said, “and he wasn’t known for caring too much about collateral damage.”

“If multiple people had died, it would have made it harder for the police to pin down the actual target,” Sarah added.

“But you already knew he was an assassin, didn’t you? Why didn’t you stop him before the whole...” She waved her hand with a frown, obviously searching the right word. “...thing.”

“Well… yes. But we thought he was still in his room,” Chuck replied. “We were planning to arrest him later. So it wouldn’t cause an incident and make people panic.”

Ellie narrowed her eyes at him again, but he met them with his without flinching. Much. He was telling the truth, after all. “And why did you have to do this, and not someone else? Sarah, Casey?”

Chuck blinked. How could he answer that without revealing classified information and without making his whole team look reckless?

“We had to deal with the assassin and his accomplice,” Sarah told Ellie. “That left Chuck for the distraction.”

Ellie wasn’t happy, but she seemed to accept that. Telling her that he had dealt with the ‘accomplice’ wouldn’t go over well, Chuck was sure. And neither would pointing out that _she_ hadn’t wanted to cancel the trip. Ellie was a great sister, but she didn’t like admitting a mistake.

“So… apart from that, how did you like the weekend?” Chuck asked, smiling brightly at her.

“Apart from the fire, and the fact that the restaurant was out of commission for the rest of the weekend?”

“Yes?” Chuck kept smiling. 

Ellie gave him another look - she didn’t like his way of dealing with her sarcasm. “It was surprisingly enjoyable. Apart from worrying about my brother becoming an arsonist. But I don’t think I want to spend my honeymoon there.”

He nodded, more than a little relieved. “I understand. Sorry.”

“Devon knows this great hotel on Hawaii, though,” she added with a toothy smile.

Chuck managed not to wince as he agreed. At least, she hadn’t asked why the CIA hadn’t ordered them to cancel their weekend.

“That also reminds me: The hotel’s silverware was lovely, but Devon thinks it would clash with the decor at our wedding. What do you think?”

Now Chuck did wince. As did Sarah.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, January 28th, 2008**

“Another day, another Monday.” Chuck blinked. “I think that this didn’t come out right.”

Morgan, leaning against the Nerd Herd desk next to Chuck, yawned, “I think you got the gist right, Garfield.”

Chuck’s friend looked more tired than usual for a Monday morning, Chuck realised. And they hadn’t stayed up late playing Call of Duty, either. Come to think of, when was the last time that they had played Call of Duty late at night? Or at all? He couldn’t remember. “Did we grow old?” he said.

“What?”

“I can’t remember the last time we played games all night long,” Chuck replied.

“Oh, that’s easy, that was…” Morgan trailed off, then blinked at Chuck. “I can’t remember, either!”

“Someone must have messed with your minds!” Lester appeared behind them, almost making Chuck jump and shriek. As he turned, the Nerd Herder went on: “Probably a curse. Dark magic.”

“Yes, a curse called growing up,” Chuck retorted. “Be real: Why would anyone wipe our Call of Duty memories?”

“So they can sell you the latest Medal of Honour?” Lester pointed out.

“That came out last year,” Morgan said. “And it’s currently in the discount bin.” Someone had ordered a few too many copies.

“Exactly,” Jeff said, as if that made sense.

“I somehow doubt that Electronic Arts would use magic to improve their sales,” Chuck said.

“Well… it would explain a few things…” Morgan trailed off at Chuck’s glare.

It was too early for this kind of paranoia. Besides, if Electronic Arts were dabbling in the dark arts, Willow would have found out already. Or Andrew. “Don’t you two have calls to answer?” he pointedly asked the two. “If not then I’ve got a client who wants his home entertainment system integrated with his new computer and console…”

“Oh, we have this urgent house call! Very urgent!”

Both vanished with a speed that would have impressed Caridad. Chuck shook his head at the sight. Speaking of Caridad… “Demon trouble?” he asked in a low voice. That would explain why Morgan was so tired.

“What?” Morgan looked surprised.

“Are you dealing with a Council problem?” Chuck clarified. “You look like you haven’t had enough sleep.”

“Oh. No, no.” His friend grinned. “I stayed up a little longer than usual, if you get my drift.”

Chuck didn’t. Then he did. Bane. “Ah.”

“Yes.” Morgan shook his head, his grin vanishing. “Looks like Aphrodesia married a cheater.”

“Yes.” And, apparently, Bane was talking about her missions with Morgan. Although, in this case, it might also have been a way to gather more information about Aphrodesia. It was hard to tell with spies.

“Well, I’d say it’s karma, but that would seem petty,” Morgan went on. After a moment, he added: “Like her.”

Chuck had to laugh at that, even though he felt bad about it. “At least she’ll get his money in the divorce.” Unless the CIA decided to meddle. He sighed and changed the subject. “We haven’t really had a game night lately, have we?”

“No, we haven’t,” his friend agreed. “Do you think Sarah and Kirsten would like one?”

“Uh…” Even if Sarah liked to play video games - which she didn’t, at least not seriously - the odds that she wanted to spend her free time with Bane were… low. Really low.

“Right.” Morgan nodded. “You know what we should do?”

“No?”

“Game night. Here at the Buy More. Home entertainment display room. Like we used to! We could hold a tourney!”

“Didn’t we stop that after someone broke a flatscreen when they forgot to secure the Wii controller?” Chuck raised his eyebrows. Big Mike hadn’t been amused. Not at all.

“Well, I’ve learned that lesson. It won’t happen again. But think about it - we make it an employee event! Team building! Attendance is strictly voluntarily, of course.” Morgan’s enthusiasm seemed to grow with each sentence. “I bet you could sell this to Big Mike as a result of your weekend!”

Right.Their cover story for being absent. “Whoa!” Chuck held up his hands. “You know Big Mike. He’s not big on letting us use the store for such things.”

“That’s why you need to be the one to bring it up and blame it on Buy More Corporate policies!” Morgan beamed at him.

Chuck didn’t want to bug Big Mike about this. If anything went wrong - and something would; he knew their staff - Chuck would get the blame. Even though it was actually a good idea. The home entertainment display room was being used by the staff anyway, so making it an official event wouldn’t exactly do any harm. And spending a night playing games… Chuck realised that he had been missing this, now that he was thinking about it. But to bother Big Mike…

He blinked. He was risking his life as a spy (in training, at least) and preparing to join the Council so he could risk his life fighting demons. As a spy. And he was preparing to fool the CIA so his dad could rejoin his and Ellie’s life. Big Mike was a store manager. Not a spy, assassin or demon. Chuck could handle him.

He nodded. “I’ll do it.”

“Yes!”

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, January 28th, 2008**

“...and he said that it was OK.” Chuck shook his head. “I thought I’d have to argue a lot more. But, apparently, ‘Buy More Corporate thinks this is a good idea’ are the magic words for Big Mike.” ‘Thank you’ and ‘please’ certainly weren’t magic words for Big Mike. Or words he used.

“So now you’re going to hold a ‘game night’ and charge it to the store?” Sarah seemed amused as she placed their usual drinks on the table.

“We’re holding a _team building event_ , thank you very much,” Chuck replied with a grin and in his best ‘assistant manager’ tone.

Sarah laughed at that. “Well, I guess it’ll be fun.”

Of course it would be fun! And Sarah would… Oh. “You have to come too!” Chuck blurted out.

“I’m not a Buy More employee,” Sarah pointed out.

“It’ll be a family occasion. Including significant others. Like a company picnic!”

“That’d be a lot of people.”

“Oh, no. Most of our employees don’t have a family. At least not one they like.” Chuck shook his head. “That’ll add, at most, half a dozen to a dozen people.”

Sarah frowned for a moment. “How many people do you expect in total?”

“About half a dozen serious gamers and probably a dozen casual gamers,” Chuck told her.

“‘Serious gamers’?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Yes.” He ignored her scepticism. “People who can play competitively.”

“Ah.” She nodded, but he had the impression that she didn’t quite understand the hardcore online gamer scene. But he also knew that this wasn’t the time to try to educate her about it. “That’s quite a big event.”

“Oh, yes. But it won’t be as big as say a company picnic, where everyone brings their extended family so they can eat on the company’s dime,” Chuck said, then blinked. “Oh. I think that’s the real reason Big Mike approved this. The event will be much cheaper than a picnic.”

Sarah chuckled. “It seems the conman got conned.”

He frowned at her, but that only made her more amused. “Well, it’ll be fun, anyway,” he said. And that was what was important. “We have enough consoles and TVs to have a real match, like an old school LAN party.”

She opened her mouth, presumably to ask what a LAN party was, but suddenly tensed and narrowed her eyes, looking past him at the door. He glanced over his shoulder. Oh. There was a redhead coming towards the store. And she looked vaguely familiar...

*****

Jeans and top a little too fashionable for the area, shoes a little too sturdy for the ensemble, but, most importantly, the woman moved as if she was stalking someone. Sarah knew the attitude - that was a Slayer coming their way. Or something as dangerous. At least it couldn’t be a vampire.

“Hi!” the Slayer smiled at them, then looked around, taking in the store and briefly locking eyes with Bane behind the counter before heading towards Sarah and Chuck.

“Uh, hi… Vi, right?” Chuck said, confirming Sarah’s guess.

“You remembered!” The Slayer beamed at him. “Rona bet me you wouldn’t.”

“Rona?” Chuck looked lost.

“Even better! You remembered me and not her!” Without asking, ‘Vi’ grabbed a chair and sat down at their table.

“Uh…” Belatedly, Chuck looked at Sarah. “This is Vi, a Slayer. We met during the, uh, Wolfram and Hart apocalypse. Vi, this is Sarah Walker, and she’s Kirsten Bane.”

“Pleasure,” Sarah lied.

“Hi” Bane waved with a smile.

“Hi!” The Slayer sniffed the air. “Oh, that smells delicious. Could I have a couple hot dogs? Xander said you made the best.”

“Of course,” Sarah replied, mentally counting how much that would set the back as she looked at Bane. The spy should know how much a Slayer ate from Caridad’s visits.

“On it!” Bane imitated an eager employee perfectly. Too perfectly, Sarah thought - no one was that chipper in the morning.

“Thanks!” Vi nodded, then leaned forward. “So...”

“You’ve got our order,” Sarah cut her off, glancing towards Bane for a moment.

Vi pouted for a moment, then nodded again. “Yes. Should have expected that, huh? You’re spies, after all.” She pulled out a small package. “Here!”

“Thank you,” Chuck said, smiling. “We’ve been waiting for it.”

“Yep. That’s why we sent a courier. Well, that and I wanted to visit L.A.,” Vi said as Sarah pocketed the package. 

A few minutes later, the Slayer was stuffing her face with half a dozen hot dogs. Sarah hoped that the IDs would measure up. But even if Bane wasn’t present, she couldn’t check the quality of the fake IDs. As important - or more - than the quality of the forgery would be the electronic data trail. And she couldn’t check those in the store. Nor could she use The Castle’s facilities, not without alerting the CIA on her queries. She’d have to do that at home - and probably ask Orion to check them as well.

Vi said something that didn’t make it past the two sausages in her mouth, then swallowed. “So, what’s up in Los Angeles?”

“Technically, we’re in Burbank,” Chuck told her.

The Slayer snorted at that. “You sound like Andrew when you do that.”

Chuck looked insulted at that, Sarah noticed. Unsurprisingly - she had heard stories about the man before. “Hey!” he said.

Vi, though giggled. “Just joking.”

Yeah, right. Sarah knew about that excuse. But before she could change the subject, she spotted another figure coming towards the store. Grimes. And he looked like he had something to confess.

“Hi, Kirsten! Hi, Chuck. Hi, Sarah!” Grimes announced as he entered. He couldn’t be more obvious than if he tried, in Sarah’s opinion.

“Morgan? We were just talking thirty minutes ago.” Even Chuck had noticed it.

“Ah, yes.” Grimes nodded, then cleared his throat.

“Morgan?”

“Well, do you remember the game night event?”

“We just talked about it.” Chuck narrowed his eyes, Sarah noticed.

“Yes. It’s going to be a little bigger than first planned.” Grimes’s smile looked fixed on his face.

“A little bigger?”

“We’re holding a game tournament for the entire Buy More Southern California Division.”

“We _what_?” Chuck got up. “Morgan!”

“It wasn’t my fault! You know the Buy More Net?”

“Buy More Net? Do you mean the online chatroom you use?”

“Err, yes. Anyway, I kind of told the other Buy More employees - employees of other stores, I mean - about our game night.” Grimes winced under Chuck’s glare.

“You bragged,” Chuck said in a flat tone.

“A little. So… someone must have tattled, since Big Mike got a call, and, well...”

Chuck closed his eyes, sighing. “And now we have to hold a tournament for half a dozen stores. Great.”

Sarah shook her head. Something that would have been a nice diversion for Chuck - doing something he loved - just turned into a huge project. Work, in other words.

“I’ve got good news, too, though!” Grimes piped up.

“Yes?” Chuck, understandably, sounded rather sceptically.

“Wienerlicious will be our caterer!”

She was supposed to spend the game night making and serving hot dogs?

“So, you two can officially attend!” Grimes went on, nodding several times.

They could refuse the contract. Although that would threaten their cover - someone might wonder why a small store would refuse such an opportunity. Damn.

Sarah would make Grimes pay for this. 

*****

Uh-oh. That was Sarah’s ‘I’m going to kill you’ smile. And it was aimed at Morgan! Chuck had to intervene before something happened. “And did we get our budget increased as well?”

“Oh, yes,” Morgan replied. “Big Mike ensured that. Straight from Corporate.”

Which meant if the event wasn’t a success, someone would discover that it wasn’t actually a Buy More Corporate idea, as Chuck had insinuated to Big Mike. And that would mean Chuck would end up as the scapegoat. Great.

Well, it wasn’t as if he needed the job. Not any more. But still… He sighed and focused on the task at hand “Well, we’ll need to find another date with so many attendants. And we’ll have to organise more consoles and screens.” They should be able to find some cheap ones among the returns from the Christmas sales. And there were the ones they hadn’t been able to sell at all, not even with a huge rebate.

“Ah, don’t worry about that. You don’t have the reschedule - we already agreed to keep the date,” Morgan told him. “This Saturday is fine for everyone.”

Chuck closed his eyes. They had less than five days to plan and prepare all of this? He should let Sarah kill Morgan.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, January 28th, 2008**

“Alright, guys!” Chuck announced as he entered the store. “Huddle!”

The staff gathered around him, in some cases leaving customers in the middle of a sale. He usually would correct that, but this was an emergency.

“You’ve heard about the game night tournament.”

“Hell yeah!” Lester yelled. “We’re going to crush them!”

Everyone else joined in with remarkable enthusiasm, whooping and stomping their feet.

“We’re going to _organise_ this,” Chuck told them. 

He narrowed his eyes. “So… Jeff, Lester. We need about three dozen additional consoles and TV screens.” They nodded, smiling. Until Chuck added: “Don’t break the law.” 

Chuck looked at Morgan. “We need more game copies. Check with the game companies if they want to sponsor this, No pirating!”

“Yes, sir!” Morgan saluted.

“Anna, check with the building manager. We need the central food court for that. There isn’t enough room anywhere else in the store.”

“Aye-aye, sir!”

“Burt, get us enough tables and chairs from the furniture section. Comfortable gaming chairs. And no sabotage!”

The heavy-set man nodded rather reluctantly. And Jeff and Lester were ‘subtly’ glancing at him. 

Chuck glared at both of them. “I mean it - no sabotage. We’re going to win this fair and square. Casey!” The NSA agent glared at him. “Keep an eye on them. No shady stuff!” Casey smiled in response, and the rest of the staff shuddered. Chuck felt a little intimidated himself, but continued. He had a task to finish.

“Carlos! Make sure that parking space is available for the other teams. Enlarge the staff section temporarily. On Saturday evening, not earlier,” he added, to avoid confusion. Some of the staff needed _very_ clear instructions. And very close supervision.

“Everyone else, back to your posts!”

They scattered. Chuck nodded. He had probably forgotten a few details, but they could be handled. The big tasks had been distributed. This should work. Hopefully. Now he had to talk to Big Mike about the budget. He turned - and almost walked into Vi. When - and how - had she sneaked up on him?

“That sounds like a great event!” she said, grinning. “Caridad’s working for Wienerlicious, right? Can’t wait to see her making hot dogs!”

Chuck blinked. He had forgotten about that particular detail. Caridad might not mind working the hot dog stand - it was free food, as far as the Slayer was concerned - but with another, rival Slayer watching? Probably teasing?

That could be trouble.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, January 28th, 2008**

“Chuck?”

Chuck looked up from his half-written memo to Buy More Corporate about how a console tournament would be a great way to strengthen both employee motivation as well as brand identity. “Yes?”

“The IDs check out” Sarah announced as she closed her laptop.

“Ah.” Chuck hadn’t expected anything else, but it was good to get confirmation. Even if, all things considered, the IDs had come at a rather inopportune time, what with the blasted tournament about to take place. Provided Chuck didn’t mess up. “So… when do we start that mission?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” That was, like, way too quick. He was busy with work, after all. So busy, he was working at home.

“We’ll establish a presence there,” Sarah explained. “We can keep working in Burbank - it’ll add to our cover story if we’re seen to commute to work. As long as we’re not tailed.”

“Ah.” That sounded OK.

“I do have to organise a huge catering job, after all,” she added with narrowed eyes.

That sounded bad. “Uh… sorry.”

Instead of telling him that it wasn’t his fault, she rolled her eyes in response.

That was even worse. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think it would spiral out of control like this. That was Morgan’s fault.”

“Yes.”

Uh-oh. “Please don’t kill him!”

She snorted, which was a good sign. “I’m not going to.”

“Good.”

“But I’ll need a favour from you,” she added.

“Sure! Anything!” He beamed at her.

“Make sure that Morgan supervises Vi, so she doesn’t start trouble with Caridad during the event.”

“Uh…” She was frowning again, he noticed, so he hastily agree. “Sure!”

Chuck hoped he hadn’t just agreed to get Morgan maimed in a Slayer fight. Perhaps he had to talk to Phil about this. Watchers were supposed to handle such things, right? On the other hand, Morgan was training to become a full-fledged Watcher...

Damn, this was a mess.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, January 29th, 2008**

“And here we have the kitchen. It’s brand new, hardly used by the previous tenant, and sports the latest generation of kitchen aids and appliances. Check out the stove here, Mrs Black!”

Chuck kept a bland, polite smile on his face as he followed Mr John ‘Call me Jack’ Barnes into the kitchen. They had to play their role, he was well aware of that, but Barnes had a rather annoying manner. And rather patriarchal views, too.

“Oh, Charles is the cook in our little family,” Sarah told the man.

Chuck glared at her behind the man’s back, then smiled.” Oh, yes. Sarah barely manages to boil water for tea.” Smiling at Barnes became easier after seeing her reaction to that.

“Ah.” Barnes wasn’t fazed in the slightest. “Mr Black, check this out! Electric induction - the latest generation. And both a microwave and a stove!”

“Great.” Chuck was tempted to demonstrate that being the cook of the family didn’t mean you were a good cook, but he had teased Sarah already, and they were on a mission. “It did receive excellent results in the latest tests.” He had read the Buy More reports, after all.

“Oh, yes, it did! This apartment is a marvel of progress! And you won’t have to commute far at all, Mr Black!”

And his phrases were vintage sixties. Well, they were almost done with the tour, and then they could agree to rent it without appearing too eager.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, January 29th, 2008**

“So this is your secret base!” Vi exclaimed as she looked around with obvious interest. “We need something like that back in England!” Sarah was about to subtly ask what the Council had in England - gathering information was always useful - when the Slayer glanced at Caridad and added: “And it even has catering!”

Caridad, who was still wearing her Wienerlicious uniform, glared at the other Slayer. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing!” Vi was quick to reply with an altogether too-innocent smile. “I love that there’s enough food at hand without having to cook myself or listen to complaints about my appetite.”

Caridad frowned but seemed to accept that. “It’s not exactly free,” she said.

“Buffy said it was free!”

“That was during a mission to stop an apocalypse,” Caridad replied. “You’re just a tourist.”

“I’m hunting demons, too!” Vi wasn’t smiling any more, Sarah noticed. “I’ve already got a vampire today.”

“A tourist, yes. Like on a safari. Or a poacher!” Caridad scoffed.

Sarah could almost feel the tension in the air as the two Slayers faced each other.

“Uh…” Chuck spoke up. “So, did you see the armoury yet?”

“Oh, the armoury!” And in an instant, Vi turned from a superpowered predator about to attack another of her kind into a gushing fangirl. “Faith told me about it! A bit light on blades, though, right?”

“Casey’s been rectifying that,” Sarah told her. “We’ve got swords and axes in addition to knives now.”

“Ah, yes. Where’s Casey? I didn’t get to meet him in the store. And I’ve heard so much about him.”

Chuck paled, Sarah saw. She wasn’t quite as obvious with her reaction, but she shared the feeling. Caridad and Casey still hadn’t sorted things out between the two of them. And that...

“Oh, really?” Caridad snarled and stepped up to Vi, showing a chair out of the way and into the wall with enough force to dent it. “What did you hear?”

“That he’s a great guy,” Vi replied with bared teeth.

If they came to blows in the middle of the base here, with expensive and easily breakable equipment surrounding them...

“Uh…” Chuck mumbled.

She had to intervene. Sarah cleared her throat and stepped up. “Have you seen our sparring room?”

The two Slayers’ eyes lit up.

*****

“Well… at least they got it out of their system?” Chuck said said half an hour later as he was looking around in the utterly wrecked room.

Sarah glared at him. The repair costs, and the need to do the repairs in secret, wouldn’t please the general at all.

“It was your idea? And you saved the rest of the base?”

He was blaming her for this? She glared harder at him.

*****


	27. The Game Night Part 2

**California, Burbank, The Castle, January 29th, 2008**

Chuck cringed at Sarah’s glare but stood his ground. It hadn’t been his idea to send the two Slayers to the training room, after all. Granted, he hadn’t had any idea how to keep them from wrecking the briefing room with all the electronics, either, but still… “We could bill the Council?”

“NO!” two people yelled out in unison from the infirmary of the base. 

Right, Slayer hearing.

“We should, yes, “Sarah, somewhat predictably, agreed. 

“No!” A heavily bandaged Caridad, still wearing the tattered remains of her Wienerlicious uniform, appeared in the door to the infirmary. “You sent us there, and you knew this would happen! This is entrapment!”

A moment later, she was pushed aside by an equally bandaged Vi. “And how would you explain what we did, anyway?” She shook her head, seemingly unconcerned about her black eye and bandaged temple, until Caridad elbowed her away again. “Hey!”

“Yeah! That’s classified information!”

“And how do you propose to explain the damage done to the base?” Sarah asked.

“Uh… shoddy workmanship?”

“A grenade explosion?”

“A short-circuit started a fire?”

“The base was built by a trusted contractor,” Sarah replied. “And the damage doesn’t show any sign of either a blast or a fire.”

“We can change that!” Vi retorted with a bright smile. “Fire pretty!”

“Or we can say Chuck or Morgan had a mishap with a flamethrower,” Caridad added.

“What? Why should I take the blame for this?” Chuck protested. Morgan, maybe - but he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Because you’re the crucial intersect, so they can’t punish you?” Caridad beamed at him.

“No,” Chuck replied in his best flat voice.

“Did you just suggest setting fire to the base?” Sarah asked with a flabbergasted expression that Chuck had rarely seen on her face.

“Only to the broken parts,” Caridad replied.

“We do that all the time if something breaks in a fight so the owners can claim their insurance,” Vi added.

“We’re talking about the CIA, not some private citizen,” Chuck pointed out. “Part of the US government.”

“That means they’ll know how to pull off a scam to get money, right?” Vi beamed at him despite her swollen cheek.

Chuck closed his eyes. “Let’s call Phil.”

“No!”

“No!”

*****

“Well… that’s a lot of damage,” Brown-Smythe said, looking around. “I thought this was supposed to be a sparring match.” He glanced at the two Slayers who, Sarah noticed, didn’t meet his eyes.

“It was an enthusiastic sparring match?” Vi said, cocking her head.

“We got a little over-enthusiastic?” Caridad added.

That was an understatement. Watching two Slayers go at each other had been very impressive. Terrifying, if Sarah was honest. They had literally torn up the room with their bare hands and feet. And, in Caridad’s case, at least once with their forehead.

And they were still - or again - up and moving with hardly any sign of being handicapped by the damage they had suffered. If Sarah had been hurt in a similar way, she’d been unable to fight for a week. Hell, if she had taken one of the blows the two Slayers had exchanged, she’d be dead.

It really wasn’t fair. Spies risked their lives as well, but without any supernatural advantage. And Sarah would soon be fighting demons more than enemy spies.

“So, Phil… what do you think we should do?” Chuck asked. “We can’t exactly explain this on a damage report.”

“Make something up. Perhaps an accident,” the Watcher said. Caridad perked up, and Vi smiled, Sarah noticed. Until he continued: “Caused by Caridad and Miss O’Malley, of course.” Both Slayers gasped.

“The damage is a bit too specific for that,” Sarah pointed out.

“That can be solved,” Brown-Smythe retorted. “Water damage, or a small fire with smoke damage - provided you remove the more telling parts before the workers arrive to restore the room.”

That would be a lot of work. The room had been quite sturdy.

“I’m sure the two girls will be happy to help move the broken parts. Right?”

“Yes…”

“There goes my evening…”

Brown-Smythe tsked at them. “If you had behaved in a manner befitting responsible adults, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

“But we’re still hurt!” Caridad exclaimed.

“Then you’d have to stay at home anyway,” the Watcher replied. “And this is light duty compared to combat.”

“That’s all your fault!”

“What? You started it!”

“Children…”

Sarah shook her head. All the Slayers she’d seen so far had acted in a rather immature manner. So had the Scoobies, though. 

At least Casey wasn’t around. That would have probably spelt disaster.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, January 30th, 2008**

Sarah was ready for bed - for sleep - when they finally got home. Between setting up a lease for the apartment Downtown and making sure the Slayers didn’t demolish more of the base by tearing out structural support beams while ‘cleaning up’, it was shortly before midnight when Sarah and Chuck managed to leave.

And supervising grumpy Slayers, even when they were slowed down by their wounds, was surprisingly hard. Those women seemed to have a natural gift for wrecking things. And people, Sarah reminded herself.

But now they were home, and she could finally rest.

“Say, Sarah…”

She closed her eyes - with her back to Chuck - and suppressed a sigh. “Yes?”

“Do you think Bane will grow suspicious when we start sleeping in the new apartment?”

She turned and saw that Chuck hadn’t started to change into his pyjamas. He wasn’t idly wondering, but honestly worried, then. She flashed him a smile. “Casey and Morgan will run interference.”

“Ah.” He slowly nodded, then licked his lips, once. “Uh, do you think that will be enough?”

“It should.” Casey wouldn’t let them down. Grimes… Chuck’s friend had better come through for them.

“That’s not really reassuring,” he said.

She shrugged. “Do you want me to lie to you?”

“What? No, never!” He smiled at her. “I’m just a little nervous.”

“Well, we’ve got a good chance to pull this off,” she told him. “But nothing is ever a hundred per cent sure.”

“Apart from death and taxes?” His smile turned into a grin.

She nodded, chuckling. Even though she wasn’t sure about death any more. The things she had heard and overheard, but never wanted to ask about… “Let’s head to bed,” she told Chuck. “You’ve got your event preparations tomorrow, and we’ve got a mission starting in two days.” 

The lease would start per on February 1st. A day before the game night. Wonderful timing.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, January 30th, 2008**

There were more customers in the store than usual, Chuck noticed when he arrived in the morning. At this time of the day, on a Thursday, the store was usually almost empty. The store _was_ almost empty, he noticed with narrowed eyes. Empty of staff. Well, almost empty - one register was staffed by a new hiree, Mark, Kim was at the helpdesk, and Casey was occupied trying to help an old lady pick a tv.

He quickly scanned the rest of the store. Scattered green shirts. No Nerd Herders there either.

Pressing his lips together, he made a beeline towards the home entertainment display room, ducking behind the ‘games shelves’ to avoid getting dragged off to help with a customer.

He heard the sounds of heavy gaming before he reached the door. Yelling, cheering, heckling. Shaking his head, he entered and quickly went to stand in front of the main TV screen. “Alright, the party’s over,” he told the assembled staff - the usual suspects, led by Jeff and Lester, no doubt, but missing Morgan it seemed. “Back to work, everyone!”

“What?” Lester, holding a controller, jumped up. “You want us to work in the middle of the night! It’s true, then - management is full of slave drivers! No more, I say!”

‘In the middle of the night’? What the… Chuck blinked as more of the crowd got up and joined what was rapidly shaping up to become an impromptu strike committee. He looked around and saw that everyone was up in arms, brandishing game controllers and junk food packages. “Guys… guys…” No one was listening. “GUYS!” he yelled, channelling Casey, “STOP THIS AT ONCE!”

To his own surprise, it worked - everyone seemed to freeze for a moment, gaping at him.

He seized the moment. “It’s nine in the morning, guys!” he snapped. “The store’s already open.”

“What? That’s impossible!”

“It was barely midnight last I checked!”

“Can’t be!”

“Are you joking?”

Chuck crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at them. “Do I look like I’m joking? Check your damn phones!”

“Oh my God! It’s morning!”

“Damn!”

“Oh, no!”

“Does this count as overtime?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Chuck snarled at Jeff. “How on earth did you manage to game all night without even noticing the time?” The last time Chuck had done that had been in his teenage years. And none of the people facing him was a teenager anymore. So how… He blinked as he saw the stack of energy drink cases in the back, behind a sleeping Anna. Empty cases.

He turned to stare at Lester, who cringed. “Uh… we’re checking who gets to sponsor the game night. Those were free samples.”

Chuck closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His staff had spent the night playing video games and overdosing on caffeine. If he remembered his teenage years, they’d be crashing around noon. Probably - he and Moran usually had drunk cheap soda, not expensive energy drinks. “Get back to work before I send Casey in,” he said.

The room emptied out in record time, leaving him and Anna, who, apparently, had fallen asleep and hadn’t woken up yet. He suddenly tensed. Had she actually overdosed? Did she need medical attention?

He quickly went to check, then relaxed when he realised that she was merely asleep with her ears plugged.

Well, that meant he’d have at least one decent worker in the afternoon. Big Mike would still kill him. Not literally, of course.

And why hadn’t Morgan been here? Chuck’s friend hadn’t been at the base, either, now that he thought about it…

*****

And Morgan wasn’t in the store, either, Chuck saw once he had herded Anna back to work. He pulled out his phone and texted him. 

_Where are you?_

He looked at the message. Perhaps that was a little too direct. Not quite rude, but if Morgan was hurt, it would look rather…

“Hi, Chuck!”

There he was! Morgan came towards him, and he seemed fine. Not hurt or stressed. Chuck felt relieved - and a little envious. “Sorry, overslept a little,” his friend said, looking around. “But no harm done.”

Chuck didn’t quite scowl, but he didn’t smile, either. “I had to break up an early game night,” he told him.

“Oh?” Morgan blinked. “Wow, they take training very seriously - staying late yesterday, and starting early today just to train is impressive.”

“They didn’t stop in between. Or went home,” Chuck explained.

“Oh.”

“Yes,” Chuck agreed. “And they’re hopped up on energy drinks.”

Morgan winced. “Enough to play through the night? They’ll crash hard.”

“Yes. Speaking of playing through the night…” Chuck raised his eyebrows at him. If Morgan hadn’t been at the ‘training session’, and not in the base…

“Ah.” Morgan’s smile looked a little forced as he glanced around. “I was with Kirsten.”

“You usually are, aren’t you?” Chuck replied. They weren’t living together, not officially, at least, but Morgan probably spent more time at her apartment than at his home. Well, Chuck would do the same if he were living with his mother and she were dating Big Mike.

“Well, yes.” His friend grinned widely. “But we had a romantic outing, and then, well…”

Chuck could connect the dots. He nodded. “I see.”

“Yeah!” Morgan got enthusiastic. “We first went to that Mexican restaurant Ellie liked before they fired the cook, and then we went clubbing.”

The way his friend blushed at the clubbing, Chuck really needed any further details. “I see”, he said quickly. “So, I need to check on the preparations for Saturday. You’re in charge of wrangling the greenshirts.”

His friend gaped at him. “What?”

“You’re the only one with enough experience currently not hyper from caffeine,” Chuck explained before adding: “Welcome to being the responsible adult in the room.” Delegating was a key part of management, after all, and this was mainly Morgan’s fault, anyway.

His grin didn’t fade until he opened his mail folder and discovered that the press would be attending the event as well.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, January 30th, 2008**

“So you left Morgan in charge?”

Sarah’s comment made it sound worse than it was, in Chuck’s opinion. “He’s got the experience,” he replied. “And he’s not drunk on caffeine. Besides, he’s used to handling Caridad.” And even the misfits of the Buy More had nothing on a Slayer when it came to causing trouble.

She frowned at that. “He wasn’t around when we needed him last night.”

“Ah, he was, uh, keeping Bane busy,” Chuck said, glancing at the woman in question, who was currently flirting with a regular customer.

“Ah.”

Sarah didn’t look like she appreciated that as much as she probably should, given their need for exactly such distractions for their upcoming off-the-book mission. Speaking of the mission... “Uh, there’s bad news as well,” he said.

“What?”

He squirmed a little under her sudden, sharp focus. “There’ll be a newspaper and a TV crew at the game night. Local TV,” he clarified.

“There’s still a not-insignificant chance that someone we’ve met or will meet during the operation will watch the broadcast,” she said.

“I know.” He had hoped she would tell him differently. “So, what can we do? Sabotage their records?”

“As a last resort,” she replied. “Try to keep out of sight and away from the press.”

He grimaced. “That might be a little difficult.” Big Mike wouldn’t mind being praised for the idea, but he would leave all technical questions - and any questions related to actual gaming - to Chuck.

“Make yourself scarce. Be busy backstage and stay away from the reporters.” Sarah snorted. “I think the contestants will be fascinating enough for a report.”

Chuck sighed. That was what he feared. Big Mike would be happy to take the praise, but if things didn’t turn out perfectly, Chuck already knew who’d get the blame.

At least he wasn’t relying on the job any more. Just in case things went really wrong. “Speaking of, how goes the catering?”

Sarah immediately scowled. “Based on the expected number of participants and visitors, we’ll be busy all night making hot dogs.”

“Even with Caridad helping?” Chuck asked.

“Especially with her helping,” she replied.

What would… Oh. The Slayer would be helping herself to food, first. “Sorry,” he said.

She nodded in acknowledgement, which didn’t make him feel any better.

And he still hadn’t solved all logistical problems with the event. Jeff and Lester still had to deliver enough consoles for everyone, for example. Chuck could only hope that they’d manage not to mess up before they crashed from their caffeine high.

Mess up too much, he amended his thought - he was familiar with the duo, after all. More than he wanted to be.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, January 30th, 2008**

At noon, the staff break room looked like it had been taken over by zombies. Employees were sitting or lying on all suitable and a few unsuitable surfaces, sleeping or mumbling incoherently. Chuck had to pull Kurt’s face out of his lunch before the man accidentally drowned, and the smeared pasta sauce on his skin made him even look like an undead.

“Uh… Caridad’s not coming over, right?” he asked Morgan. It as unlikely, what with Casey manning the store, but you never knew with Slayers. They were rather impulsive.

His friend looked up from where he had recovered the microwave from being used as a pillow by Al. “What? Not that I’d know, but I don’t know her plans, you know? Why?”

“Because she might start slaying the staff here by mistake,” Chuck answered.

Morgan blinked, then laughed in response. “It might be a mercy killing,” he said. “Poor guys. Can’t handle their caffeine, I guess.”

“And you could?” Chuck asked. He remembered their teenage years.

“Oh, sure,” Morgan told him, pushing another employee back from the table. “Working through the night without wrecking yourself is an unofficial Watcher skill. Phil does it with tea, Dawn’s into coffee, but there’s a handbook about picking the right dose.”

Chuck blinked. The more you knew… “That sounds useful.”

“Oh, yes! Saved my bacon lots of times,” Morgan agreed, unwrapping his sub.

Chuck rolled his eyes. “That was polite code for ‘share’.”

“Oh!” Morgan laughed. “I’m a little slow today, sorry. I’ll get you a copy later.”

“Thanks.”

“Aren’t you going to eat your own lunch?” Morgan asked between two bites.

“Once I found Jeff and Lester,” Chuck replied. “I thought they’d be here. They’re not in the home entertainment display room, either.” They were his employees, so he was responsible for them, so leaving them collapsed somewhere wouldn’t do. And it wouldn’t look good for the store, either. It was bad enough that they were reduced to a skeleton crew for the afternoon - he was still wondering if he should blame the flu or food poisoning.

“Ah, they went to fetch more consoles,” Morgan told him.

“What?” Chuck froze for a moment. “They went driving in their state?” Jeff and Lester were dead. Either in traffic or when he got them.

“Huh? Oh, don’t worry, they took another case of energy drinks. They’ll last until they’re back; I checked the dose.” His friend gave him a thumb’s up.

Chuck wasn’t so sure about using the Watcher’s caffeine intake guide any more. “And where did they go to get the consoles?” He hadn’t received any requisition forms from them, or requests for a budget.

“Lester had an idea about saving money,” Morgan said.

Chuck suddenly wasn’t hungry any more. Not with his stomach sinking to the floor.

*****

Jeff and Lester arrived two hours past noon with a van. A Buy More van, Chuck noticed when he went to meet them, which he didn’t remember signing out. At least it didn’t look damaged.

“Chuck!” Lester waved at him. “Come, look at that! It’s great!” 

Chuck pasted a weak smile on his face. “What did you do?”

“Got us the consoles we needed!” Lester declared, nodding like a bobblehead as he opened the back of the van. “See? See? Three dozen consoles!”

The back was packed with consoles, indeed. And a sleeping Jeff. But… “Where did you get them? And how much did they cost?” And where did they get the money to pay for them?

“Oh, we had a great idea!” Lester declared, beaming at Chuck. That made him look far more deranged than friendly, Chuck noticed. “Christmas was last month, right?”

“Yes?” 

“So, we knew that there’s bound to be tons of returns. Grandparents buy the wrong console, kids break stuff or get bored, parents listen to the voice channels and getting worked up over the language… you know it.”

Chuck nodded. The typical trash-talk during a deathmatch made sailors blush. And parents froth at the mouth. “So, you raided the return bins?”

“We raided the return bins!” Lester nodded rapidly. “And we didn’t even have to pay anything - officially, we’re repairing and testing the entire stack before we resell them!”

That was… well, Chuck wouldn’t call it genius. But it was a decent idea. Certainly creative. And in the spirit of the event fostering cooperation. It had just one drawback. “You’re aware that you need to actually repair and test them before the event, right?” He narrowed his eyes. “We wouldn’t want to provide the contestants with broken consoles, would we?”

Lester blinked at him but didn’t answer.

“That would be cheating,” Chuck went on. “Anyway - you’ve got two days to do it, so I suggest you get to work…” He trailed off when he realised that Lester was asleep on his feet, slowly sliding down the side of the van against which he had been leaning.

Chuck closed his eyes and muttered a curse under his breath that Casey was fond of using. Great. Just great.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, January 31st, 2008**

Chuck finished replacing the loose sensor and shook his head. What had the customer done to the controller? Thrown it around the room a few dozen times? Well, Chuck would be lying if he claimed that he’d never done something similar. As a teenager. Young teenager. But he wouldn’t have returned the entire console for a ‘broken’ controller.

He sighed and checked the time. Uh-oh. His shift was almost over. Sarah wouldn’t be happy if he were to pull overtime. Not when they had to check on their ‘new apartment’ tonight. And it really wasn’t his job to fix all the consoles Jeff and Lester had brought. Even if fixing one or two had been a nice way to keep his skills up.

He stood and checked on the duo behind the wall formed by stacked boxes. They had fallen asleep again, which he had expected. But they had managed to fix at least two consoles each, which was a pleasant surprise. That didn’t change the fact that they were still sleeping instead of working, though. So he shook their shoulders, waking them up. “Hey! No sleeping on company time!”

“Huh? What? I wasn’t sleeping! I was merely… Chuck! Don’t scare me!” Lester complained.

Jeff merely grunted and glared.

“I mean it, guys. Don’t sleep here. You’ve had the whole last night to catch up on the sleep you missed yesterday.”

“Err…” Lester looked away.

“You did go home, as I told you, and rest, didn’t you?” Chuck said, narrowing his eyes.

“Yes, yes! We went home and rested!” Lester blurted out.

“Playing games counts as rest, yes?” Jeff said at the same time.

Chuck closed his eyes and groaned. “Guys… Why did you do this? You were barely able to walk yesterday evening.”

“We had to train!” Lester replied. “The honour of our store is at stake!”

“Yes,” Jeff nodded. 

“If we don’t completely destroy the other stores, we’ll be the laughingstock of the whole chain!” Lester shook his head. “We wanted to sleep and take it easy, but sometimes, a man has to do what a man has to do. For the Buy More!”

“Really.” Chuck shook his head. “Now finish your work here, and then go home. And don’t game. You won’t be saving anyone’s honour if you fall asleep at the event.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we can sleep on Saturday afternoon!” Lester said with a bright smile.

Chuck glared at him. “No, you can’t. We need everyone to handle the store and set things up.” To forestall any further discussion, he added: “Casey will be supervising you.”

Both paled quite noticeably, so Chuck hoped that they’d heed his warning.

Sighing again, he left the repair room, as Morgan had dubbed the repurposed storage room, and went back to the store - and ran right into an argument at the helpdesk.

“I want to see the manager! This is outrageous!”

Chuck winced. Not at the volume of the red-faced customer’s complaint, but at Anna’s scowl. The woman was one of the best employees of the store - not that that was a high bar to clear - but she had a temper and a violent side. Not even close to a Slayer, of course, but still… another assault charge wouldn’t look good for either her or the management. Which meant Chuck.

So he pasted a smile on his face and quickly approached the desk. “Hi! I’m the manager. What seems to be the problem, sir?” he asked in his best ‘helpful store clerk’ voice.

“The problem is that this woman won’t give me back my console! She’s trying to foist a new one on me!”

That was a new complaint. Usually, customers tried to exchange their old and broken consoles for a new one. Chuck cocked his head and looked at Anna.

“He wants his specific console back. He returned it and got a new one at another store,” she explained.

“And I’m giving it back! Good as new!” the customer interrupted her.

“That’s the oldest trick in the book!” Anna retorted with a snarl. “I’ve used it myself as a kid!”

That wasn’t a surprise to Chuck, but something that shouldn’t be said aloud, in his opinion. He cleared his throat.

“You can check it! Hell, I’ll pay for it, but I need my original console back!”

Chuck coughed loudly. “Sir… that seems a little excessive.” And fishy.

The man glanced from Chuck to Anna and back, then leaned forward. “Please… it’s embarrassing…”

“Embarrassing?” Chuck blinked, then nodded. “Ah.” He lowered his voice. “Porn?” Well, not porn, but perhaps some embarrassing game saves? Chuck wasn’t up to date about the latest adult import games, but there was a grey market for original Japanese games for a reason.

The other man nodded.

“Don’t worry. We wipe the memory of all our consoles before we resell them,” Chuck told him with a smile before glaring at the smirking Anna.

“But I need my console back.”

“Sorry, sir, but odds are it has already been memory wiped. We’re very efficient,” Chuck lied.

The man stared at him as if Chuck had told him that he had mailed the content to the man’s wife. Shaking his head, the customer turned away, muttering something Chuck didn’t catch.

“Some people!” Anna exclaimed as soon as the man was out of sight. “Why can’t they use a PC, like normal people?”

Chuck shrugged. “Perhaps because their wife is less likely to snoop around in a console?”

Anna giggled. “Hey… I’ve got the man’s order number. Wanna see what kind of embarrassing secret he had?” She raised the card she had been filling out.

“What? No!” Chuck told her. “Gimme the report!” he took the card and pocketed it.

The last thing he needed was for the repair crew to go porn hunting instead of fixing the consoles.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 1st, 2008**

“...and the bed goes there, opposite the dresser.” Sarah pointed at the two spots in the designated bedroom so the two movers standing in the entrance hall of the apartment wouldn’t mix them up, as had happened before.

Working with a civilian company was good for their cover, but she would have preferred slightly more competent people to direct. The dresser and bed wouldn’t be housing surveillance gear, so their precise placement wasn’t as critical as the sideboard for the home entertainment system. Still, if she had to live here for a few weeks, in the worst case, then Sarah preferred to have the apartment laid out according to her - and Chuck’s - preferences.

Speaking of Chuck… She gave the two movers another look, then went back to the living room. Ah. As expected, he was already setting up the TV. “I’d have thought you were sick of doing that stuff,” she said with a teasing smile.

He chuckled in that slightly embarrassed way of his that she found charming. “Uh…” he looked around to check for witnesses. “It’s not quite the same as dealing with broken electronics.” He pointed at the flatscreen. “That’s a high-end piece, too. Latest technology.”

“A challenge, then?”

He snorted. “Not quite a challenge. But it’s a very good TV.”

Which probably meant he wanted one for their apartment after this mission. Well, they could afford it. Even after Chuck’s gift to Ellie and Devon. “Let’s go and get the devices you really want to install?” she asked.

He blinked and looked a little confused. “Aren’t we waiting with them until we’re set up?” 

As expected - he knew that they couldn’t exactly install surveillance gear while the movers were still around. “The gaming console and DVD player,” she told him with a smirk. “The things you didn’t want others to touch.”

He glared at her in return, but it was more of a pout, in her opinion, and she gave him a peck on the cheek before they left the apartment.

That mollified him. “The apartment is set up great, with regards to the electrical systems, though. Lots of outlets everywhere. Installing things in older houses is a pain - and some people don’t want to accept that their setup can’t handle the new electronics,” he told her once they were inside the lift.

“It’s expensive enough to easily cover that,” she reminded him. They could afford a new TV, but rebuilding the house was stretching the limits a little. Unless the Council had a generous housing budget.

“Oh, yes. Still…” He trailed off as the lift arrived on the first floor of the garage.

“So, console and player… and the speakers in the green box?” Sarah said, to keep up appearances as the door opened. They hadn’t yet surveillance on these areas of the building, after all.

“Yes, I think that…” Chuck trailed off again, staring at the young woman in a maid’s uniform facing them with two bags of groceries. No, he was flashing, Sarah realised.

“Ah, hello,” she spoke up to divert the girl’s attention from him to her. A maid’s uniform? Really? At least it wasn’t a French maid’s uniform. On the other hand, you could hide a lot under that. “We’re moving into the apartment on the seventh floor. I’m Sarah Black,” she added with a smile.

“Uh, hello,” Chuck managed to say. “Charles. Chalres Black.”

“Juanita Gomez,” the woman replied with a polite smile. “I work for Mr Gonzàlez. Good evening.”

“Good evening.”

Gomez kept smiling as she walked past them into the lift. As soon as the lift had left the floor, Sarah turned to look at Chuck.

“She’s Margarita Lopez. Suspect in a dozen cartel killings in Mexico,” Chuck whispered, looking around.

Ah. “His bodyguard, then.” Sarah nodded as they walked to their car. The woman might need to be dealt with as well. Perhaps they could frame her for the murder - arrange some domestic drama resulting in a murder-suicide?

They’d need more information about the woman, though, to successfully set up something like that. And check with Casey.

*****

“Margarita Lopez? I’ve heard of her, yes,“ Casey said a few hours later, inside their new, if temporary, apartment. “Stone-cold killer. Likes to drag it out, too, or so I’ve heard.”

Definitely a good choice to frame for the killing, Sarah thought.

“Uh… how does that work together?” Chuck asked. “Stone-cold and sadistic? Aren’t they kind of mutually exclusive?”

Casey gave her a look as if he expected her to educate Chuck about the finer points of assassins’ psychology before he addressed Chuck. “It means she’s a professional killer who’ll murder you without a qualm if she’s told to, but that she’ll take her time and enjoy it if she can afford it.”

“Or is told to,” Sarah added. “The cartels like to make examples out of their victims.” Torture them to death, often.

“Ah.” Chuck winced, and Casey grinned.

“Don’t let the cute uniform fool you. She’s an assassin. We need to take her out quickly, once we make our move.”

“Uh, sure.”

“We’ll handle her,” Sarah told him. “You’re handling the electronics.”

“Right. Computer guy, that’s me.”

“Unless your Intersect kicks in,” Casey pointed out with a sneer. He looked around in the apartment. “So, let’s get to work. You can try out the bed once we’re done here. Don’t stay up too late - we’ve got a long day tomorrow thanks to the stupid idea of Bartowski and his idiot friend.”

“Hey! It’s not my fault!” Chuck protested.

In vain, of course - Casey was correct about this, Sarah knew.

There was no time to argue it, anyway. They had to start bugging the place. And hacking the system.

*****

**California, Burbank Buy More, February 2nd, 2008**

“Alright, everyone, good work - so far. Now check the power lines before you switch the screens and consoles on!”

Chuck suppressed a yawn as he watched the staff members finish the preparations in the food court. Or start to finish. After reading Jeff and Lester the riot act before, he couldn’t afford to look as if he had spent the whole night playing video games himself. Not that he had, anyway - he had spent half the night placing bugs and hacking the security system of Gonzàlez. Which he hadn’t managed - the drug lord practised excellent computer security. At least they had access to the buildings security system, but that had cost him a few hours of sleep which would really come in handy right now.

Shaking his head, he wandered over to the Wienerlicious food stand - which was quite a bit bigger than a normal food stand. “Hey!”

Sarah, of course, didn’t look tired in the least. Well, not from the night spent crawling through air ducts and placing electronic surveillance devices. She looked a little stressed from setting up the stand. Annoyed as well; he could tell.

But she greeted him with a smile. “Hi, Chuck.” And handed him a coke before he could ask.

“Thanks.” He smiled, a little embarrassed. “I guess I look like I need some caffeine, huh?” he added in a low voice.

“A whole case!” Caridad, working five yards away to set up a condiment dispenser, called out. Slayer hearing.

“Thank you, Caridad.” Chuck put as much sarcasm into his words as possible, but it didn’t even faze the Slayer.

“No problem!”

“Speaking of problems…” Sarah spoke up. “Is that Vi with Morgan?”

“What?” Caridad growled. “He’s my Watcher in training! She can get her own!”

Chuck checked. Indeed, there were Morgan and Vi, walking towards Big Mike. What was his friend doing? “I’ll be right back,” he muttered.

“...yes, Big Mike, she’s a professional video player. Competed in Korea, and she’s in Los Angeles to visit a few friends. If we hire her as a temp, she can compete and ensure our victory!” 

Great. Morgan was trying to use Vi as a ringer in the tournament. Chuck pressed his lips together. What were they thinking? Wait, dumb question. Both wanted to win. Slayers were insanely competitive, and Morgan had been bragging to the other Buy More teams.

He shook his head. He had to stop it. Then he grinned. He knew just how to do that. “Hey, Big Mike! We’re on schedule for the event - everything’s going fine.”

“Chuck! That’s what I want to hear. This is our chance to shine, after all. Outdo the other stores!” Big Mike told him.

“Sure thing, boss, “ Chuck said. “Oh, Vi, Caridad is still busy, so she has to delay her break for ten more minutes.”

“What?” Big Mike snapped. Chuck saw the man’s eyes narrow as he looked around, then even more when he spotted the Slayer at the food stand. “Caridad? What’s she doing here? If she wrecks this event like she wrecked the store…”

“Oh, she works for Wienerlicious,” Chuck said. “That’s why Vi’s here, too; she visiting her friend.”

“Her friend?”

“Uh…” Vi started, followed by organs “Err…”

Chuck spoke over both of them. “Oh, yeah. Best friends. They met in Sunnydale.”

Big Mike scowled. “Best friends?” He huffed and walked away.

“Chuck!” Morgan hissed. “What are you doing?”

“Why did you do this? I would have wrecked the others!” Vi complained.

Chuck rolled his eyes. “Think for a moment! Vi, showing off in front of a TV crew?” 

“Oh.” Morgan blinked, then winced. “She can sandbag! Play just good enough to win!”

“Yeah!”

Chuck glared at them. He wasn’t a Scoobie, but he knew Slayers. Holding back? Yeah, right. “You want to explain this to Giles? And Phil?”

“Err… no need.”

Both made themselves scarce with forced smiles.

Chuck sighed and headed back to Sarah. Sometimes…

Caridad was grinning broadly. “Well done!”

“Someone had to.” Chuck didn’t bother to explain that he hadn’t done this to keep Vi from upstaging Caridad and grabbed his half-empty bottle. He needed more caffeine.

With another sigh, he leaned against the counter and looked around. The TV screens were up, but the consoles hadn’t yet been brought online, so the big screen which would show the best fights later was still running Day TV. The news, at this moment. A reporter was standing in front of the harbour, talking about an unidentified body they had dragged out of the sea, talking about gang wars.

Then they showed a picture and Chuck gasped. He knew the man! That was the customer who had been so annoyingly insistent on getting his console back!

*****


	28. The Game Night Part 3

**California, Burbank Buy More, February 2nd, 2008**

Chuck hadn’t flashed on the man - neither in the store nor now. But this couldn’t be a coincidence. The man had been acting weird, and his story didn’t really check out, now that Chuck thought about it. How many Japanese porn games were even available on that platform? And the man hadn’t looked like an addict or gang member, either, which might’ve explained his behaviour.

In any case, Chuck couldn’t ignore this. Someone had killed the man - violently, it seemed. And if they had made him talk, they’d come here. Or were already present. Damn

He looked around. The event wouldn’t start for a few hours yet, which meant the store was still open, and customers were passing the food court. And none of them looked suspicious. Or triggered the Intersect. Which didn’t mean anything, of course. The Intersect wasn’t infallible, and good spies wouldn’t look suspicious.

In any case, he had to inform the others. He headed back to the Wienerlicious stand. “Sarah?”

“Yes?” she replied in that tone he knew meant ‘I’m busy, so this better be important’.

“I think we’ve got a problem,” he told her. “A problem-problem, not something…” He gestured at the rows of screens and consoles Jeff and Lester were setting up.

Now he had her full attention. “What did you find out?”

“Uh, it’s not that I had a sudden revelation, you know?” He glanced around, just in case someone might be watching. “But there was this weird customer two days ago who wanted his broken console back. His specific broken console. And today, they found his body in the harbour, murdered.”

“Which console is it?”

“Uh… one of those?” He pointed at the tournament area. Then he blinked. “Wait… I got the repair report in my office! I’ll be right back!”

He turned and headed back to the store. Where had he stashed Anna’s report, again? Not with the regular reports, or someone might have tried to swipe it - people did a lot of stupid things for porn, after all. About a fifth of the Nerd Herd calls were probably the result of someone browsing a porn site and getting a virus.

Right, he had left it in his shirt. Which had been put into the laundry… Damn.

Chuck made an about-face, as Casey would say, and returned to Sarah.

“Did someone steal the report?” she asked in a whisper as soon as he reached her.

“Uh… not exactly. I think it’s in the laundry. Sorry,” he said.

“How many consoles are there?”

“Forty,” he replied. “Six per team, and four in reserve.”

“How fast can you check them?”

“Uh…” He looked around. “That’s not the problem.” At worst, he’d have to spend a few minutes per console.”

“What?”

“See those guys there?” He nodded towards a group of people occupying the pizza corner. “They are observers from the other stores. They checked the consoles for tampering in the morning. If I suddenly want to check the consoles again…” He winced.

She narrowed her eyes, and, for a moment, he was afraid she’d propose a Casey solution to the problem of interfering civilians. “Then we have to check them after the tournament and keep our eyes open for anyone who tries to get them.”

Chuck nodded. “Uh, sure.”

“Don’t worry,” Caridad commented as she passed them to pick up a can of mustard, “I’m on it!”

“Oh, no!” Vi butted in - Chuck hadn’t seen her around until she spoke up. “You just keep making hot dogs; I’ll take care of this.”

“Really? Big Mike will get security to throw you out if he spots you!”

“Hah! If he could do that, you wouldn’t be here. Besides, he won’t spot me!”

Chuck winced. “Guys! We’ve got this - you don’t need to do anything, really.” Why were both Slayers interested in messing with a spy mission?

“Casey can’t be everywhere,” Caridad retorted. “And I know the area like the back of my hand.”

Oh. Of course. That explained the sudden desire to work as a spy. Chuck looked around. Where was Morgan? Handling Slayers was Watcher work! And Morgan should be here. “Has anyone seen Morgan?”

“No…” Caridad frowned. “He was keeping an eye on Vi.”

“What? I don’t need a keeper!”

“Kirsten?” Chuck called out to Bane. “Have you seen Morgan?”

“He had to go to the bathroom…” She trailed off, and Chuck could see her growing tense. “But that was ten minutes ago.”

Damn.

“Keep an eye on the consoles! I’ll check the bathrooms!” Chuck told Sarah and started moving. He hadn’t taken more than a few steps, though, before Caridad and Vi passed him. The two Slayers weren’t going full speed - impossible in this crowd - but they were still weaving through the people mingling in the food court with supernatural grace. Fortunately, the TV crew wasn’t present yet, but if anyone paid attention…

Chuck himself had some trouble, almost shoulder-checking a man balancing two supersized menus on a tray and bumping into another overweight passerby as he dodged the first.

“Hey!” the man complained, but Chuck was already past. “Sorry, emergency!” he yelled over his shoulder.

Vi and Caridad would already be… Chuck’s eyes widened. They were going to the closest bathrooms - the public ones. Morgan never went there. Not since he had had to clean them when he had started at the Buy More. He always went to the staff bathrooms.

Chuck pulled out his phone, giving a family with three small kids a wide berth, and started texting while he cleared the food court. 

_STAFF BATHROOM_

He bumped into a woman, who spilled her drink on her partner, but he sent the text. And once he had left the food court, he could run more easily. But he was alone - should he wait for the Slayers?

“Move!”

That was Bane. She was right behind him.

Chuck sped up.

“We informed Casey. He’s on the way,” the spy told him as they ran past Nerd Herd desk.

But would the two of them be enough to handle whatever was awaiting them? “Are you armed?” he asked, opening the door to the staff area.

Instead of answering, she drew a compact pistol from under her skirt.

“Right.” He pulled out his pencil-stake, feeling under-armed. But Morgan was in danger. “It’s this way.”

“I’ve been here before,” she replied.

Oh. Of course - Morgan liked to use the home entertainment room for ‘private entertainment’. One of the reasons Chuck didn’t like using the room to play video games.

Bane took the lead in the hallway, gun pointed ahead. 

“Watch out for friendlies,” Chuck said as they entered the break room, where he grabbed a length of pipe stashed behind the door.

“Aren’t you armed?” Bane asked as they continued their advance.

“It wasn’t supposed to be a mission!” he retorted. It was supposed to be a game night!

“We’re always on a mission,” she replied before she kicked open the door leading to the staff washrooms. 

Now that was a peculiar wording… Chuck jerked back just in time to avoid getting shot. Silenced pistol, he noted as he rolled over his shoulder and came up in a crouch.

But Bane had done a combat roll and come up shooting. By the time Chuck reached the door, she was already kneeling next to a man holding his bleeding shoulder and thigh. The entrance to the restrooms had been torn open, and Chuck could spot Morgan’s jacket hanging on the hook on the inner side.

“Where did you take Morgan?” she asked as Chuck picked up the pistol the man had dropped. Glock-17, nine bullets left, silencer.

The man groaned but didn’t reply.

Bane kicked his bleeding thigh, making him scream in pain. “Talk!”

“Uh…” Chuck wasn’t sure about this. But he wasn’t flashing on anything or anyone. So, what else might…

Caridad arrived, Vi on her heels. “Where’s Morgan?” She sniffed the air. “Blood… his blood.”

What? Chuck took another look at the toilet stall. Yes, there was a spot of blood on the floor. 

“They hurt him?” Bane kicked the man, harder this time, and he screamed again.

Chuck was glad the area was pretty much sound-proof, as the impromptu rock karaoke a few months ago had proved. If anyone happened to stumble on them… “Can you track him?”

“Of course,” Caridad said.

“What?” Bane looked confused. “He’s got a locator?”

“Uh… something like it,” Chuck said, staring pointedly at the man on the floor.

A moment later, she had knocked him out.

“This way!” Caridad snapped and took off towards the backdoor with Vi.

“Shouldn’t we secure him?” Chuck asked as Bane followed them. “And, uh… treat his wounds?”

“Later!”

Damn. Chuck hesitated a moment, then ran after the others. The man would survive. Probably.

At least he was armed now.

He reached the exit to the loading ramps in time to catch Bane turning the corner. That made sense, of course - on that side were dense bushes. Demons had once used it to get close to the store without being detected.

Halfway to the corner, he heard yelling and screaming, but when he rounded it, leading with his gun, the fight was already over. The Slayers were standing over two knocked out - Chuck saw no blood - men, and Bane was cutting the zip ties with which Morgan had been secured to the fence here.

They had worked him over, too - Chuck could see a few cuts and growing bruises on Morgan’s face. But he was alive. And he wasn’t bleeding much. And he was conscious.

“Chuck! They want a console we repaired!” Morgan blurted out. “They were talking to their boss on the phone while they beat me up!”

“Uh. So there are more of them,” Chuck said.

“Can you track their phones?” Vi asked.

“Not with enough precision to find them inside the store,” Chuck said. Same cell. And even if he rigged up a detector, if they mingled with the growing crowd… “We’ll have to guard the consoles.”

“And treat his wounds,” Bane said. 

Morgan claimed that he was fine, but she wasn’t listening to him.

How would the bad guys go after the consoles? By now, they were all in the food court, in plain view of dozens of people at all times. So how… “Wait, guys!” Chuck blurted out. “We need to protect Anna! She was the one to talk to the dead guy!” And, he realised with a sinking feeling, so was he… “Ok… Caridad, Vi - tie up and gag those guys, and the one in the staff area, and stash them all in… hell, put them into the cells in The Castle.” They already were privy to the base, anyway, and could transport the prisoners easily. “I’ll go back to the others. We need to protect Anna. And the consoles.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Morgan said.

“It’s just a short trip,” Chuck retorted, sending a text to Sarah and Casey. And he was armed now - he put the Glock into his waistband in the small of his back and let the shirt cover it.

But even a short trip - from the break room, where Bane was treating Morgan’s wounds with the first aid kit, to the food court area - could be very long, Chuck discovered quickly. He knew he was in danger, that there were enemies around, but he had no idea who they were - they could be anywhere and anyone.

The two young men studying the flatscreens in the electronics section? The middle-aged couple arguing over a kitchen aid? Or the lone man studying the crowd?

Chuck had to fight the urge to keep his hand on the grip of his pistol as he passed through the store. If anyone jumped him…

The single man’s eyes lit up as Chuck drew closer. Why wasn’t the Intersect kicking in? Chuck prepared to dive behind the blender alley, as Morgan called the kitchen aid section, when the man exclaimed: “Claire! There you are!”

Chuck glanced over his shoulder. There was a woman walking towards the other man. So, he had been looking for her. False alert.

Unless this was just a ploy to make him lower his guard. Had he seen the woman before? The Intersect still wasn’t working. And the gun in the small of his back felt as if it might slip into his trousers if he moved too quickly.

But Chuck reached the food court area without getting into a fight or gunning someone down by mistake. “Sarah!”

He forced himself to smile as he waved at her. “Morgan is a little banged up, but fine,” he told her. “Bane’s treating him.”

She nodded sharply, her attention on the row of consoles and screens in the centre of the area. And, he presumed, on Anna, who was supervising the crowd playing on the ‘open’ consoles. “I haven’t spotted anyone suspicious so far,” she whispered.

“There’s at least one - their boss - around; Morgan overheard the kidnappers talking to them on the phone,” Chuck explained. “Perhaps they’ve given up?” They lost three people so far, after all. On the other hand, they had already killed one man for this… “Forget that.”

Once more, Sarah nodded.

“Also, do we have a spare back holster? My gun keeps slipping down my pants.”

*****

A little later, with the gun slipping problem fixed by some spy trick of Sarah’s, Chuck was looking at the tournament tables. Anna had her hands full with the boys and teenagers who had started a small tournament of their own on the spare consoles, Bane and Caridad were busy at the food stand, Vi was… where was the Slayer?

Chuck looked at Casey, who was standing on the other side of the court, arms crossed, and glaring at everyone in the vicinity. No, no Slayer there. Which was a good thing, of course - Caridad wouldn’t have taken that well. 

But where were the enemy spies? And what was in the console that was important enough to kill people for? Perhaps they should interrogate the prisoners… but that would leave them short at least one trained spy when the enemies struck.

And they would have to make a move - the tournament was about to start, and then everyone would be watching the consoles like a hawk. Unless the bad guys planned to wait until it was over, and strike during cleanup. Though that would make them stand out since everyone not on cleanup duty would be leaving, with the store closing down.

Which, Chuck realised with a sinking feeling, would also mean there would be far fewer potential witnesses around. Uh.

“Oh, the TV crew’s arrived!” Morgan’s comment interrupted Chuck’s increasingly gloomy thoughts - only to introduce a new problem to worry about.

He couldn’t be seen on TV. Not with Dad’s mission going on.

*****

“And here’s your hot dog! Enjoy your meal!”

“Finally! I’m starving!”

Sarah had a lot of experience making and serving hot dogs, so she had no trouble working the grill and keeping a smile on her face as she served the crowd. And was observing the tables, where the competitors were now taking their seats, and wishing that the TV crew had been held up in traffic. The press’s presence only made an already bad situation worse. Chuck had pretty much abandoned the area since the TV crew had been all but hounding him, which left Grimes in charge of the tournament. Fortunately, Chuck’s friend didn’t look too hurt, or people might have questioned his ‘slipped in the bathroom’ story.

It was still a less than ideal situation, in her opinion. At least the cameraman was actually focusing on the players and the TV screens instead of on the pretty girls in the audience, so Sarah didn’t have to dodge the press herself. Of course, given the cut of the Wienerlicious uniforms, the odds of any shoot showing her face instead of her cleavage and legs were slim to none anyway. Still, she appreciated the lack of attention.

As, she presumed, did Bane, although the spy was putting up a good show about being worried for Grimes. Sarah could almost believe that she had fallen for Grimes, if not for, well, Bane being Bane and Grimes being Grimes.

In any case, she had been in worse situations. They had been surprised by events, but now they got a handle on them. Chuck was safe - Casey kept an eye on him. Grimes had been saved. They had eyes on the objective and forces in place to intercept any attempt to grab it. They didn’t know, yet, which console contained whatever the enemy was seeking, but once the game night was over, they’d have all the time needed to sort that out.

And with two Slayers present watching everyone like hawks, even Jeff and Lester were acting subdued enough to avoid making a scene.

All in all, things could’ve gone worse.

“And now, for the start of the event, San Diego versus Burbank! The challengers versus the reigning champions! Two teams enter, one team leaves!” Grimes’s voice came out of every speaker in the building, or so it seemed.

“Challengers?”

“We’ll show you!”

“We’ll kick you back to Mexico!”

“Get ready to be teabagged!”

“Damn,” Sarah heard Caridad complain next to her, “those people need some help with the trash talking. No demon would lose their composure over such weak insults.”

“They aren’t going to fight demons,” Sarah pointed out.

“Technically, they are,” the Slayer retorted as she filled a bottle from the bucket of mayonnaise under the counter. “Jeff’s got enough slime demon blood to qualify, and the tall one from the other team smells like a Brachen demon.”

A Brachen demon? Sarah frowned for a moment. “Those are the harmless ones?”

“Well, as harmless as any other human - they can go bad as well. But they aren’t evil from birth or such, so we’re not killing them on sight,” Caridad explained. With a chuckle, she added: “Not that all of them know that, of course!”

Ah. That explained where Vi was - Sarah saw that Vi had managed to get close behind the San Diego team as they took their seats, and the supposed Brachen demon was now shaking and had to be reminded by his teammates to enter the game. “Isn’t that cheating?” she said.

“Nope. Just a happy side effect of doing or duty and reminding the demons that we’ve got an eye on them,” Caridad replied with a wide grin.

Sarah snorted. Chuck would disagree, of course, but she understood the sentiment. Spies didn’t play fair either.

“And it’s on!!!!” Grimes yelled, wildly waving his free hand around. 

On the big TV screen mounted behind the players - so they couldn’t cheat by looking at it - a computer picture appeared, showing the game from the point of view of ‘CKillerXXXX’ according to the tag. Who barely managed to take a few steps before getting killed.

“And the Burbank Sniper takes first blood! That must’ve hurt!” Grimes gloated. “And there’s more where that came from!”

“Boo! You camper!”

“Get good you shrub!”

She shook her head. Chuck’s friend obviously didn’t care to be a neutral commentator. Chuck would’ve done it differently, but the crowd liked it, judging by their reactions. Well, apart from the supporters from San Diego.

Her view of the demon player was briefly obscured by the cameraman walking between her and the tables, taking a close up of the players’ faces.

No, she realised once she saw the angle at which he held the camera. Not the players’ faces. 

The consoles.

*****

Chuck’s mobile phone vibrated, interrupting his attempt to use the store’s security cameras, linked to his Nerd Herd desk thanks to a nifty little program he had installed, to find the enemy spies. He checked the display - Sarah. She wouldn’t call unless it was important. And he should get his spy comm gear.

“The TV crew are fake,” Sarah told him as soon as he accepted the call. “They’re filming the consoles, not the players.”

He swallowed the joke about product placement that somehow appeared in his mind. Instead, he said: “They’re trying to identify the missing console. They must know the serial number.” That made sense, of course.

“Yes,” she replied. “But they can’t get it now. Not with so many witnesses.”

“So we have time until the event ends, then.”

“Unless they create a diversion.”

“Diversion? Uh. Like a… fire alert?” That’s what he would do. Had done.

“Yes, _like a fire alert_.” 

“Uh…” It was highly illegal. Fire alerts were vital. Tampering with them could endanger lives - hundreds, in the case of a building as large as the Buy More, doubly so during a crowd-packing event. As Ellie had told him in detail after the Malibu mission. But a false alert would endanger all those people anyway. Especially if followed by a firefight between spies. “I’ll disable the alert and put it on a loop.” That way, he could check if there really was a fire before sounding the alert.

“Good. Casey’s setting up for fire support.”

Smart. With two Slayers on the ground and Sarah and Bane, they didn’t need anyone else on the floor. “I’ll keep an eye on the security,” he said. “Safely away from the press.”

“Be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” he told her, turning around to watch a customer slowly walk towards him. “Careful is my middle…” he trailed off as he flashed.

Jack O’Riley. Three convictions for blackmail and extortion. Suspected of two counts of murders without any evidence, and a string of cons and blackmail. Last thought to target starter business in the IT field.

Chuck shook his head, blinking. O’Riley was coming for him. And the man had noticed his reaction - his hand slipped under his leather jacket.

Chuck was faster, though. His day planner flew through the air like a rectangle-shaped discus and hit the other man in the face as Chuck ducked below the desk and drew his pilfered gun. He came up - but O’Riley had disappeared. Fled? “Enemy here! O’Riley!” he whispered to the phone he had dropped.

Movement on his left side drew his attention, and he whirled - and almost shot an older woman peering at the rows and rows of games.

He dropped to the floor before he realised what he was doing, and a fraction of a second later, he heard the sound of a bullet wheezing past. Silenced pistol, he noted. Probably a .45 - smaller calibres didn’t do as well with subsonic munition.

He was already rolling over his shoulder, coming up pressed against the Nerd Herd desk and aiming… O’Riley had disappeared again. Chuck pulled his laptop down and started to switch the camera feeds around. He needed the ones covering this section, and he needed it yesterday. Before O’Riley found a clear line of fire.

There! Chuck grinned. There was O’Riley, sneaking…

Once more, Chuck hit the ground just in time for a bullet to miss him. He returned fire with his own silenced pistol, driving O’Riley to jump into cover behind the printer lane. Chuck’s underpowered bullets wouldn’t go through those machines, but if he caught a glimpse…

Without taking his eyes off the row of cardboard boxes, he drew the laptop towards him. It would be difficult to set up a shot using the security camera, but… A glance at the laptop killed that plan - the bullet that had missed him hadn’t missed the computer.

“That was an overpriced business model,” Chuck muttered as he shifted his position. Big Mike would explode if he got the bill.

Where were the others? Sarah would’ve heard the fight. And it wasn’t that far from the food court to the Nerd Herd desk. So, where were the reinforcements?

Footsteps! Chuck rose, raising his gun, then froze. Vi stood there, frowning. “Where’s the enemy?”

“Uh…” Chuck looked around. No sign of O’Riley. “He’s disappeared again.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“I need another laptop,” Chuck said.

“Is this the time to think about computers?”

“To check the security cameras!” he explained, already moving to the computer section.

But before he reached it, he heard yells and screams from the food court area.

“Fire! Fire!”

So much for his plan to block the fire alert diversion.

*****

“Fire! Fire!”

Sarah jerked when she heard the yelling. So much for Chuck blocking the fire alerts. She looked around as the first people in the crowd started to move. There would be a panic and…

“That’s pathetic! A fake fire alert? Can you be any more obvious!”

Sarah blinked. What?

One of the players from the San Diego Buy More was yelling at Grimes, and the crowd stopped moving.

“You’re losing and want to break off the match! Pathetic!” the man went on.

“That’s not us!” Grimes retorted. “That’s one of yours trying to keep us from coming back!”

“You’re walking into our trap!” Lester added.

“Hah! Are you delusional? You’re about to get curb stomped!”

“We’re going to put you out of your misery!”

“We’ll see about that! Guys! Execute Plan Beta!”

“Beta as in buggy and improvised?”

“Certainly not Alpha, hah!”

And as Sarah, halfway around the food counter, watched, the match continued, with the crowd settling down. Were all the Buy More staffers crazy? She had assumed a particular collection of misfits had accrued in Burbank as sometimes happened, but everyone else from the visiting stores seemed to take games as seriously as the locals. She might owe Chuck an apology.

After she took care of the missing spy and his accomplices. And ensured that there wasn’t an actual fire. “Do you have eyes on the ones yelling fire?” she whispered into her radio.

“They’re in the northern section,” Casey answered, “I can see them on the cameras. Two men, armed - it’s the TV team.”

She could handle two men. “I’m on it,” she said.

“Bartowski’s grabbing a computer,” Casey told her as she cleared the food counter and moved through the back of the crowd. “But I don’t see the man he fought.”

That meant the man - O’Riley, was it? - had to be in a spot outside camera coverage, which was useful information by itself. But she had to deal with the two firestarters first.

“They’re entering the toilets now.”

Probably to start a real fire. Sarah sped up, drawing her gun as she closed in on the toilets - the silencer wasn’t the best, but this far from the main event, no one should overhear it. She kicked the door open and shot the man serving as a lookout before he could raise his own pistol, then crouched down and turned around. The other had to be in one of the stalls.

She tilted her head, peering through the gap at the bottom. She couldn’t see any shoes, but there was a mass of toilet paper on the floor in the last stall - ready to be set on fire. She could fire through the stall, but her subsonic bullets might be deflected or stopped if they hit at a poor angle, and if she caught a bullet herself…

Sarah looked around and grinned. Perfect.

She grabbed the bucket in the corner and swung it as she rushed forward, then let it go. It sailed over the stall, and Sarah heard a muttered curse right before she kicked the stall open. The man had been standing on the toilet and lost his balance when her bucket hit him, having to use both hands to keep himself from falling.

“Freeze!” she snapped, aiming at his head.

He froze. Thirty seconds later, he was unconscious and tied up on the floor, and Sarah was hanging an ‘out of order, do not enter’ sign on the door outside.

*****

“...now let’s reboot and see if I can get a connection working,” mumbled Chuck as he finished installing his program on the laptop he had borrowed from the electronics section. It was a display model, so the battery was already charged.

“What are you doing?” Vi asked.

“I’m hooking this up to the security cameras so we can check them here,” he told her.

“Couldn’t we have gone to the security centre? You have one, right?”

“Uh… with this, we can move and keep checking.” It was a good excuse for not thinking of the simpler solution, in Chuck’s opinion. “Otherwise, I’d have to stay there and guide you through your phone.”

“We really need those spy radios you guys have,” Vi replied.

Chuck nodded. So did he.

The computer finished rebooting - finally! - and Chuck started the security camera feed grabber. It worked! He smiled as he began to go through the different cameras. O’Riley had to be somewhere.

“Oh no!” Vi’s exclamation interrupted him.

“What?”

“Caridad took down the fake TV crew! Without me!” the Slayer complained.

Chuck shook his head. Slayers! But with two wanna-be arsonists down, the TV crew down, and the ones who had kidnapped Morgan taken care of, there couldn’t be many enemy spies left in the store.

And that meant O’Riley would be trying to flee. And the main entrance and exit was in plain view of the food court, which meant...

“Come on!” Chuck blurted out, “We need to get to the loading area.” The enemy had kidnapped Mogan in the staff area, so they were familiar with the layout, and Chuck didn’t think O’Riley would head out through the same route Morgan had been taken through, so that left the loading ramps in the back.

Vi took off like a rocket. The Slayer was at the door to the staff area before Chuck had grabbed the laptop, and by the time he reached the break room, the Slayer must have reached the loading area already.

He quickly checked on the laptop - yes, there she was, searching for O’Riley.

Who, Chuck realised with a sinking feeling as he saw the next camera feed appear, wasn’t there, but headed to an emergency exit. Close to Chuck’s position.

Pressing his lips together, he drew his pistol and started running again.

He had to get into a position where he could ambush or, at least, block O’Riley. That meant reaching the door first. There was a room near it where he could take cover, and once the man walked past… Well, Chuck could shoot him in the leg. Or something.

But when he reached the emergency doors inside the store, so had O’Riley. Chuck dived into the camping section’s display, taking cover behind the log at the fake camping site as the man opened fire. But the log was thick enough to…

A bullet blew straight through it an inch in front of his head. The thing was made out of plastic! Big Mike had been cheap again! Chuck scrambled backwards, two more bullets missing him, then rose with his gun drawn. He fired two shots towards where he had seen the spy last then dashed across the display and took cover behind the fortunately oversized and over-engineered portable generator.

This time, he could hear the underpowered bullets ricochet as they hit the solid metal of the generator. But where was O’Riley? Just from the angles of the shots, he had to be… Chuck peered through a gap between the tank - empty, or at least it should be empty - and the main part of the generator. Folding chair and table section - clear. No one hiding behind the trail ration aisle, either - they still hadn’t moved that to the food section despite regulations. That left… Yes! Something moved behind the tent row. Chuck tracked the movement through the gaps in the aisle, lining up his shot for the moment he had a clear line of fire.

But what exited the aisle wasn’t O’Riley - it was a shopping cart covered in a tarp the colour of the man’s shirt. Chuck gasped, then whirled and threw himself to the side, behind the Football-team-sized cooler. 

But no one shot at him. Why would the man use a distraction, but didn’t follow up? The emergency exit! He scrambled up and rushed towards the doors again. Though he would be too late to stop the man, he should be able to catch up in the hallway behind the doors that led outside the actual building, or in the parking lot there.

Unless O’Riley expected that. Which he probably would, Chuck realised as he ran past the outdoor clothing section. With the… Oh!

He grabbed a mannequin wearing an ugly neon ‘don’t shoot me, I’m no deer’ jacket and dragged it with him to the emergency doors - which had been opened already - then pushed it through first.

He felt it jerk under his hand as two bullets hit the mannequin and let it drop to the floor as he slid around the door’s frame, leading with his gun. His first shot hit O’Riley’s arm, making him drop his weapon, but his second shot missed as the man jerked and jumped towards Chuck in a combat roll. Despite being wounded, the man managed to complete the roll and execute a roundhouse kick that disarmed Chuck.

Chuck managed to dodge the follow-up slash with a combat knife that had appeared in the man’s hand, and the next and the next before O’Riley overextended. Chuck kicked the mannequin into the man’s leg, causing him to stumble, then slammed his pencil into the wounded arm, point first.

O’Riley went down, screaming in pain and clutching his arm, where the pencil was stuck in the wound, but a roundhouse kick to the temple shut him up.

Chuck closed his eyes for a moment, leaning against the wall and panting.

That had been close. Very close.

“Aw.... you got him already.”

It took Chuck a moment to recover from the near heart-attack Vi suddenly appearing next to him caused, but at least now he didn’t have to lug the man around himself.

*****

“...and in an unexpected but inevitable reversal, the Burbank Bandits manage to win the match with a last-minute play that utterly destroyed the overconfident San Diego Sharks! A perfect plan executed flawlessly, folks! Game, set and match! Let’s hear it for Burbank! We are the champions! There’s no time for losers!”

As Morgan shed any pretences about being impartial and shamelessly started to gloat, Chuck leaned against the Wienerlicious’s food stand - or what was left of it - and crossed his arms. “All’s well that ends well, huh?” he commented, looking at Sarah next to him.

Her smile looked a little tired - but then, she had spent the last two hours mostly serving hot dogs.

“And you probably made a profit,” he went on in a bright voice, the hurriedly added: “I’m joking!” when her smile turned into a glare. “And it wasn’t funny?”

She shook her head, but she seemed mollified. Chuck felt relieved. “So… that was game night. Worth it, I think.”

“Hm?”

“It was a lot of stress,” he explained as he watched Morgan wave around the trophy, hugging Bane with his free arm, “but it was also fun. Even if I didn’t get to play much myself.” Though he got to catch enemy spies.

“We still need to recover the console,” she reminded him. 

“Yes, but we know which console.” And all the bad guys were in cells now. Or the morgue.

“So, did you get the game night out of your system?”

She was smiling a little mischievously, he noticed. “Uh… let’s say I got the huge tournament for half a dozen store teams out of my system?”

That made her laugh. “As long as you don’t organise local game nights in our living room.”

Chuck was glad he hadn’t mentioned his plans for a smaller game night, just a few friends playing together. Perhaps in a few months, when things had settled down...

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 3rd, 2008**

“So… O’Riley had blackmailed a computer programmer from Silicon Valley he had met in the online gaming scene into handing over the source code of the new network application that his firm was developing for the government. And he hid it inside a gaming console’s memory.” Chuck shook his head as he summed up the debriefing’s results while Sarah parked their car. “Do you think he got a little too much into his role?”

“Perhaps,” she replied. “There would have been better ways to smuggle the data out.”

“Good for us,” he commented as they exited the car and walked towards the lift which would take them up to their temporary apartment. Not so good for the poor contact O’Riley had killed, though.

“Yes,” Sarah agreed.

“So… now we have to maintain our cover, hm? Newlyweds?” Chuck asked.

Her grin matched his, to his slight relief. The game night had been a little stressful for everyone, after all. But by the time the lift reached their floor, they were in each others’ arms, kissing passionately.

And they kissed some more in the hallway. And next to the door. Some hands may have wandered as well. Just maintaining their cover, in case someone had the entrance and lift under surveillance.

They managed to open the door to their new flat, and not fall down as they entered, still embracing. Perhaps the couch instead of the bed, Chuck thought. It was closer.

“Hi, son.”

And, he realised with a gasp as Sarah tore away from him and drew a gun, it was occupied. By his dad.

*****


	29. The French Connection Part 1

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 3rd, 2008**

“Dad!” Chuck exclaimed as he quickly took a step away from Sarah and checked himself for a wardrobe malfunction. Embarrassed by his parents while making out with his girlfriend… he hadn’t minded missing out on that part of growing up. Not that he had many occasions to suffer that particular indignity, anyway. “What are you doing here? And how did you get inside?” He blinked. “Ignore the last question.” It was obvious that his father had broken in.

Dad laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wait outside.”

“That would have endangered our cover,” Sarah said. She sounded very cool and collected for someone who had to hastily button up her blouse, in Chuck’s opinion.

“That as well,” Dad agreed. “Nice apartment. Your work?” He looked at Sarah.

“Thank you, yes,” she told him.

Chuck wanted to point out that he had helped, but that would have made him sound like a whiner. “So, why did you come to visit us?” Dad better had a good reason for utterly ruining the mood.

“To discuss the mission, of course.”

“Right. The mission.” Of course. Chuck sat down on the couch. A moment later, Sarah joined him. “So?”

Dad laughed again. “I wanted to coordinate with you, now that you installed your surveillance.”

Chuck didn’t miss how Sarah frowned a little at hearing that. Probably angry at not having noticed Dad’s surveillance.

“And I wanted to share my backdoor into Gonzàlez’s systems,” Dad went on. 

And now it was Chuck’s time to grow tense. He had tried for hours to hack that system! 

“Don’t feel bad. I’ve had more time to do it,” Dad said as if he had read Chuck’s mind. “And more experience as well.”

“It’s not that,” Chuck lied. “But if we had known that, we wouldn’t have wasted time trying to hack the system ourselves. Well, myself.”

“But it was good training,” Dad retorted. “You learned a lot, right?”

Chuck barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “Missions aren’t the time to train,” he replied, quoting Casey.

“Point taken,” Dad said. “Although we’ll have to schedule some training sessions, then. Once this is over.”

And he could come in from the cold. Wait… “Training sessions?” Chuck asked.

“Hacking into different systems.” Dad grinned. “It’s fun, trust me.”

Oh. Dad was a hacker. It wasn’t just a job - he liked doing it. Probably did it for kicks, too. Chuck and Sarah really had more things in common when it came to their parents than Chuck had thought before. “Right,” he managed to say without making his thoughts obvious. “So… the backdoor?”

“Here!” Dad handed him a memory stick.

“Is that safe?” Chuck eyed it.

“Yes, but it’s good policy to check yourself, of course - no one’s perfect.”

Chuck hadn’t minded missing out on such lectures, either, now that he thought about it.

Sarah came to his rescue. “Do you already have a plan for the mission?”

“It’s still in the works,” Chuck’s father replied. “I’ve got the incriminating data ready to be planted in his system, and I’ve compromised his security. However, we still need to find a way past his bodyguards, and we need to be able to cover up his death.”

Not death, murder. But Chuck nodded.

“His maid is a cartel assassin,” Sarah said. “We can frame her.”

“Oh. Like a crime of passion.” Chuck nodded. “He accosted her, she shot him in response, but his bodyguards avenged him in a firefight that cost most of them their lives, too. One escaped and vanished.”

“I think simply killing him and having her vanish would work,” she replied. “The police might think she was paid by a rival to betray him.”

“Simple and easy, yes,” Dad agreed with her.

“What about the other bodyguards? What if we get into a firefight with them?” Chuck didn’t want to be that guy, but they had ended up in shootouts a little too often on missions not to plan for them.

“Then we adapt the story to ‘killed Gonzàlez and his bodyguards’,” Sarah told him. 

“That’s almost my story,” Chuck pointed out.

“Almost but not quite,” Dad said. “Having her disappear will make it harder for the police to find out what really happened. And not everything lining up perfectly will make it less suspicious, too.”

“Yes.” Sarah nodded at Chuck’s father. “A mystery motive and a missing murderer looks more convincing than a staged crime scene - spies don’t trust things that look too neat.”

And they had to convince the CIA, after all. Not just the police.

*****

Sarah was having second thoughts about the whole mission. For very selfish but still valid reasons.

“And that’s the backdoor? Wow. I thought they patched that exploit,” Chuck gushed in a tone usually reserved for her as he stared at the computer screen.

“They did. But I hacked the internet provider and intercepted the download for Gonzàlez’s computers,” Orion explained.

“You did? Is that even possible? It shouldn’t… Wait, Dad! You didn’t hack it - you used a hardware trick, didn’t you?”

“Guilty as charged,” Orion admitted, chuckling. “Well-spotted. I installed a router through which I could manipulate the data packets sent to Gonzàlez.”

“Dad! Stop with the tests! We’re not at school, we’re on a mission!” Chuck protested.

“Sorry, old habits die hard.” The older man chuckled. “Besides, it’s not as if we’re actually doing anything dangerous right now.”

“It’s the principle of the thing!” Chuck retorted.

And, Sarah thought, we should have been in bed now, not learning hacking exploits. Or, in her case, watching the lesson.

She suppressed a sigh and smiled at both Bartowskis. “So, do you want a soda or coffee?”

“Coffee, please, my dear,” Orion replied.

“Uh…” Chuck looked torn. “It’s getting a little late. If we drink too much caffeine...”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Orion told him.

“And it’s Superbowl Day, Dad,” Chuck countered.

“Are you interested in the game?” Orion asked.

“Well, not really, but wouldn’t Gonzàlez make an event out of it?” Chuck shrugged. “We might snag an invitation if he’s feeling good neighbourly.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Sarah cut in before Orion could say anything. “I think we can set up an ‘accidental meeting’ with him - or with a guest of him - and get invited to his Superbowl Party.”

“Let me check if he’s hosting one,” Orion said. He moved towards the keyboard, Chuck giving way, and started typing. Sarah didn’t manage to follow all that he did - she’d have to ask Chuck for details, later - but soon bank data appeared on the screen. Payments. “Ah… ordered catering for a dozen people for tomorrow. And he recently bought a new flatscreen TV.” He looked at Chuck. “I think it’s safe to say that he’s hosting a party, but I’ll check his mail as well.”

Which, Sarah knew, he probably could have done first. But that might not have looked as impressive as hacking bank data. “Good. But I think we should go to bed now - so we won’t imitate Chuck’s co-workers tomorrow.” The Buy More staff was probably still celebrating their victory. She hoped that that included Bane, so the woman would be busy recovering tomorrow.

“Right.” Orion nodded. “And I guess you also want to pick up where you left when you entered,” he added with a smile. 

Chuck blushed in response, which looked cute. Sarah narrowed her eyes at Orion anyway, though - she hadn’t appreciated his interruption.

He laughed again. “I’m sorry again,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “I’ll contact you tomorrow - at a reasonable time.”

*****

Chuck smiled as Dad left their apartment. That had been a very nice, well, he couldn’t call it evening - it had been past midnight already when they had arrived. But it had been a nice visit. Even the testing by Dad, while annoying, hadn’t been really annoying. “I missed out on this, you know?” he said.

“Hm?” Sarah looked at him.

“Dad being Dad,” Chuck said. 

“Ah.” She nodded. Of course, she would understand - she had lost her father to prison when she was in high school, after all. “However, I think he made us feel like teenagers sneaking out long enough,” she went on.

Ah. He couldn’t help grinning in a stupid way. “Yes. I didn’t miss _that_ , by the way. Not that there were many occasions for it to happen in Sunnydale.” 

“I can imagine.”

“Not because of the demons and the Hellmouth there. Just the usual high school hierarchy stuff,” he went on.

“Chuck, I’ve been in high school myself. And I’ve met Harmony and Aphrodesia.”

“Oh, yes, sorry, I…” And he had met Sarah’s old high school nemesis, which he had forgotten. Perhaps he wasn’t as over his time in Sunnydale as he had thought. Or talking to Dad had made him feel nostalgia.

She walked up to him, smiling. “It’s OK, Chuck. It’s normal that you react like that to having your Dad back.”

“It is? I mean, yes, it is.” He forced himself to laugh as she began to steer him towards the bedroom.

At least Sarah wasn’t mad at him or Dad for interrupting their night, so to speak.

*****

The next morning, they got up a little later than planned. Not too late, though - it was still morning, not noon. Or afternoon. An important distinction, in Chuck’s opinion. Well, it had been back when he’d been a teenager and arguing with Ellie. Or after he had been expelled from Stanford… Gosh, he was feeling nostalgic today, and not in a good way, was he? He chuckled as he finished shaving.

He smelled fresh coffee when he stepped out of the bedroom. And toast. “Mh…” He was about to comment that he could get used to this when he noticed that she was watching the camera feeds on the laptop. Oh. “Anything of note?” he asked, as nonchalantly as he could as he took a seat and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“No one left or entered the apartment so far,” she replied without taking her eyes off the screen. Her cup was empty already, he also noticed. Had he taken so long in the bathroom?

“So that means they’ll go out later?” He took a sip from his cup and sighed. Perfectly brewed.

“Or their guests arrive,” she said. “Your father sent a list and is tracking their cars. We can meet them in the garage when we fetch some groceries you left in the car yesterday.”

He swallowed most of his toast. “Me?” After swallowing the rest of it, he added: “Does that fit our cover?” 

“Yes,” she told him with a grin. “A little slip like that makes us appear more harmless. Less likely to notice anything odd.”

“And more likely to be invited to his party. If he actually does it,” he added, frowning. “We’re not exactly business partners.”

“The people on the guestlist your father compiled aren’t drug smugglers or cartel members, either,” she pointed out. “They’re well-off people, but not independently wealthy. Probably business contacts of his - on the legitimate side of his business.”

“Ah.” Dad had been busy. Chuck hoped he hadn’t overdone it - he wasn’t getting any younger, and burning the midnight oil got harder as you got older. Chuck knew that very well. “So, did you pick a target?”

“Jack Chavez,” she said. “Investment banker.”

“Ah.” Chuck took another sip from his coffee. “And you think he’ll ask Gonzàlez to invite us?”

“His type is always trying to make more contacts. If not as potential clients, then as potential sources of information - or jobs,” Sarah explained.

Chuck pulled up the file that Dad had sent on his phone, then nodded. “And he likes women,” he commented. Lots of beautiful women, according to the pictures.

“That weakness is also a consideration,” she admitted. “

“Ah.” Chuck grabbed another toast to buy himself some time. That meant Sarah would dress sexy. Well, sexier than usual - she was always sexy. And everyone would be leering at her. Well, at least this Chavez, but Gonzàlez as well - Chuck had read the mark’s files, after all. And he wasn’t entirely certain what to feel about that.

He wasn’t an immature teenager any more who wanted to show off his girlfriend as if she were a trophy. He hadn’t ever been one of those, of course; that had been mostly a ‘jock thing’ at Sunnydale High. But he also didn’t want to be the sort of insecure, jealous man who couldn’t stand it when his girlfriend attracted attention. Or showed off. He was better than that. Or he should be. “So…” he said, “do you think Chavez or Gonzàlez will, uh, make a move?”

“I don’t think so,” she told him. “Both have mistresses, and neither would want to risk a scene with a new acquaintance at a party.”

“Ah.” Chuck felt relieved. It might be unprofessional for a spy in training, but the thought of Sarah sleeping with Chavez or Gonzàlez…

“It’s not a honeypot mission,” she told him. Of course she would have read him like a book!

He looked up and saw her knowing smile. “Ah.” He shrugged. This wasn’t the time to discuss his feelings about that. “So, all we have to do now is waiting until the guests arrive?”

“Yes.”

*****

A few hours later, the first guests began to arrive. Apparently, Gonzàlez and his guests liked to start their Superbowl party early. Chavez wasn’t among them, though.

“Do you think Chavez wants to be fashionably late?” Chuck asked as he kept an eye on the laptop screen. Perhaps he should use the TV screen for this - it would make it easier to cover more feeds.

“No. I think he doesn’t want to appear too eager, but not too arrogant, either,” Sarah replied. She was looking good, in Chuck’s opinion. Well, she always looked good whatever she wore, but he liked her current clothes. Capris and a matching top. Casually sexy, but in a girl next door way. And she could act the part as well. 

Now they only needed… “Speak of the devil,” he said as an alert appeared on the screen. “Chavez’s mobile phone is moving. He should be here in ten minutes.”

Showtime. 

They waited five more minutes, which Sara spent waking up Casey, who was sleeping in the bedroom, and filling him in. Chuck spent the time mostly worrying about the timing. Los Angeles traffic was hard to predict at times, even on a Sunday. Especially on a Superbowl Sunday. Chavez might be speeding. What if they were too late and missed running into him? What if he was late and they had to spend suspiciously long in the garage, alerting Gonzàlez? What if Chavez was late and ignored them? 

Despite his thoughts, Chuck kept up a confident front. Fidgeting and worrying would’ve been unprofessional for a spy.

“Relax, Chuck. It’s a Superbowl day, and we’re just preparing for the event in our new apartment.”

And he had to work on his poker face. He still smiled at Sarah. “Sure thing. We got this. Easy-peasy.”

She snorted at that, and then they were in the hallway, on the way to the lift, and she was frowning at him. “Really… how could you forget the groceries?”

“You didn’t notice it, either,” he shot back.

“I carried the perishables,” she said as they reached the lift.

“So, no harm done! Chips aren’t ruined if they spend a night in the garage.”

“And what if you had forgotten a bucket of ice cream?”

“Well… then we’d be out some ice cream. We’re not talking hypotheticals, though.” It was almost like practising for a real disagreement, only Sarah wouldn’t be as illogical when she wasn’t playing a role.

They stopped bickering when they reached the garage - no one would want to invite a couple having trouble to a party. That tended to ruin the mood.

And right on schedule, when they reached their car, a Corvette entered the garage and headed for the part reserved for guests.

“See?” Sarah asked with a smile as they lifted two bags filled with snacks and other unhealthy food out of the trunk. “Perfect timing.”

“Luck,” he managed to mutter before they turned away to walk back to the lift - and to meet Chavez.

The man was in the company of his current girlfriend - Bonnie Cale, according to the file Dad had sent. That didn’t stop him from checking out Sarah, though, Chuck noted. And the man didn’t start with her face.

“Hello!” Sarah greeted him as their paths converged at the lift. “We just moved in. I’m Sarah.”

“And I’m Charles. Charles Black,” Chuck added.

“Jack Chavez. This is Bonnie.”

“Hi!” 

“We’re just visiting.” Chavez went on, then peered at the bags they were carrying. “Superbowl Party?”

“Party of two,” Sarah said as the lift arrived. “We just moved to Los Angeles and don’t know many people yet.”

“Oh?”

“Charles bought our usual amount of snacks out of habit. And then forgot the bags in the car yesterday,” Sarah explained.

Cale giggled at that, which made it easy for Chuck to stay in his role and roll his eyes before looking at Chavez. “And she won’t let me forget it.”

“Aw!” Sarah reached over and hugged him. “I’m just teasing.” Everyone laughed at that. “He’s too serious, comes from working with computers instead of people,” she added.

“Investment banking,” he corrected her for Chavez’ benefit.

“Oh? I’m working in the same field. Which firm?”

“Stanford Investments,” Chuck told him, giving the name of their cover. “It’s small, but growing.”

“Ah.” Chavez’s smile didn’t waver, but he sounded a little more condescending.

Until Chuck added: “I’m their newest partner.” He could see how he went from ‘guy on the street’ to ‘potentially useful contact’ in the man’s eyes.

“That’s our floor,” Sarah said. “Have a nice party!”

“Thank you!” Chavez replied. 

Half a minute later, they were back in their apartment. “Do you think we got it?” Chuck wasn’t sure. Everything had gone according to the script, but…

“We’ll know in a bit,” Sarah replied. “He’ll have to talk to Gonzaléz first.”

Great. More waiting and worrying.

“If it doesn’t work, it’s no catastrophe. We’ll find another way to scout out the apartment. Or we go in without. It’s not ideal,” she admitted, “but we’ve done such missions before. And we know the layout from the floorplans.” 

“Don’t sweat it, Bartowski,” Casey said. “The scumbag will bite. If not today, then later. I know his type.” Chuck blinked. Casey was… supportive? “So, calm the hell down and play your role before you wreck the mission.”

Ah, there was the gruff, abrasive spy they all knew. Chuck grinned, which made the NSA agent narrow his eyes at him. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” Chuck quickly replied.

He was feeling better, though.

Until, a few minutes later, Casey reported that Chavez was headed towards their apartment.

*****

“An invitation? By our neighbour, Mr Gonzàlez? Oh, of course, we’ll accept!”

“Of course,” Chuck echoed Sarah with, or so he hoped, sufficient enthusiasm without sounding forced. “Thank you, Mr Chavez.”

“Call me Jack,” Chavez told them with a - in Chuck’s opinion - far too oily smile.

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes - we need to dress up a little,” Sarah told him. “We want to make a good first impression.”

“Well, you certainly impressed me,” Jack replied.

Chuck was sure the man didn’t mean him.

“Thank you!” Sarah, of course, played her role perfectly. She didn’t even lose her smile after Chavez had left.

Fifteen minutes later - they had been ready after ten, even with the various concealed weapons that they had to, well, conceal, but that would have looked suspicious - they were ringing Gonzàlez’s doorbell. They had dressed up, of course - a young couple trying to make a good impression would do so. Chuck was wearing his best ‘casual suit’, which was his best business outfit, but without a tie, and Sarah was wearing a black cocktail dress - though one not quite as short as she’d wear for other missions.

Lopez opened the door with a polite smile. “Ah, Mr and Mrs Black. Please come in - Mr Gonzàlez is in the living room.”

“Thank you, Ms Gomez,” Chuck replied. He was sure that she was welcoming them, instead of Gonzàlez himself, so she could check them out first. Of course, they weren’t carrying obvious weapons, nor anything that would be detected by a metal scan, so unless Lopez wanted to drop the act and pat them down, it wouldn’t help her. Though the assassin would likely be ready to kill them for the rest of the evening since she would be aware of this weakness.

The foyer wasn’t as ostentatiously furnished as Chuck had expected, but that was a low bar to clear. It wasn’t very stylish, though, but there was a certain ‘lived in’ feeling. It might even feel like a home if there wasn't a killer maid following them.

The living room, though, made up for that - Gonzàlez obviously valued his home entertainment. The latest flatscreen on the market dominated one side of the room, and the sound system was even more expensive - all high-end components. Heck, the sound system was probably more expensive than the Buy More’s entire stock of speakers and sub movers. 

“Ah, the Blacks!” Gonzàlez, flanked by Chavez, greeted them with open arms. Literally. “My new neighbours! Welcome to my home! I’m Marco!”

“I’m Charles,” Chuck replied. “This is my wife, Sarah.” If Chuck hadn’t read Dad’s file on the man, he would have been quite taken with the man’s apparent friendliness.

“Hi!” Sarah said with a wide smile.

“And these are my best friends!” Gonzàlez gestured towards the other guests in the room. “You already know Jack and Bonnie. This is my dear friend Julio with his wife Marissa, that’s Esteban with Lily, Karl and Jeanne, and the single man plundering my bar there is Kurt.” Apparently, his mistress wasn’t attending the party - still in Europe, then, shopping.

Everyone exchanged greetings, and Chuck struggled to keep up appearances - he was flashing on everyone.

Julio Flores Garcia. Suspected arms smuggler for the Sendero Luminoso in the 80s, before he went freelance and supplied various cartels. Esteban Sanchez. Drug runner, graduated to drug making. Karl Frankhauser. German banker, fired after a money-laundering affair that didn’t result in a conviction thanks to a good lawyer. And Kurt Besson, former member of the French Foreign Legion. And Jeanne Dubois, currently for the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure - the French intelligence service.

So much for Dad’s claim that the guests weren’t criminals.

“Kurt’s the bodyguard,” Chuck whispered to Sarah as they followed Gonzàlez towards the buffet. “And the others are all criminals - well, but for the wives and girlfriends. And Jeanne’s a DGSE.”

She didn’t show a reaction on her face, but he felt her grow tense. This might not be as easy as they had thought if the French were involved. At least they had Casey as backup, but if things went wrong, the NSA agent would take a few minutes to reach them.

Chuck kept smiling and hoped no one noticed how tense he was. Or that, should anyone notice, they attributed it to meeting new people with obvious money.

But if they didn’t… then things would get sticky, as the British would say. Chuck took a deep breath as he grabbed some snacks from the buffet and prepared for the worst.

*****

“Nooo!”

“You thought this would work?”

“Hah! I knew it!”

“Don’t! Don’t! Please don’t!”

“He did!”

Another play foiled. Well, that was football for you. Chuck did his best, but he had no horse in this game, or something like it, and it was a little hard to get worked up as much as the other guests about it.

For a party attended by spies and career criminals, Gonzàlez’s Superbowl party was remarkably normal. People ribbed each other in response to some particularly bad or good plays, without their host throwing around his weight as the drug cartel boss too much. It would even be boring if not for the fact that they weren’t here to watch football, but to scout out the place and prepare for a mission but Lopez wasn’t leaving them out of her sight. Playing the attentive maid always ready to help was a great cover for a bodyguard always ready to murder you, Chuck had found out.

Of course, part of the scouting Gonzàlez had done for them with a quick tour of the apartment, which was more of a penthouse - it was about three to four times the size of the Blacks’ apartment. But, annoyingly, the criminal had skipped his bedroom as well as Lopez’s and Besson’s rooms. Unlike the apartment’s bathrooms, which they had pretty much covered already, it would be hard to find an excuse to enter any of those rooms, at least Chuck couldn’t think of one. Even if seducing any of the three was on the table - and it wasn’t! - he doubted that it would work. Lopez wouldn’t be seduced, and wouldn’t be fooled, in his opinion.

Yet odds were that they’d enter the apartment at a time when everyone was in bed, which meant having accurate intel about the bedrooms was crucial. And that, in turn, meant that they would have to sneak into the rooms without being noticed. Difficult, but not impossible.

Dangerous, though. Between Lopez and Besson, Chuck and Sarah were always under observation. Perhaps Chuck could fake getting a call, leave the living room to take it and then get distracted and enter the wrong room? Would either of the two guards fall for it? And if they didn’t, what would they do? Throw him out? Or prepare a trap for later? Or shoot them out of hand? Cover it up with an accident?

And what was Dubois doing? Was this a long-term undercover mission, or something that would affect their own mission? Was Gonzàlez her target or Fankhauser?

If they had a distraction… Oh! Gonzàlez had gone all out on electronics. And Dad had completely hacked the man’s system. That might work.

But he had to be sneaky. For what he was to do, they might kill him if they suspected him, even if they didn’t think he was a spy.

Chuck leaned back on the very comfortable leather armchair - or mini-couch, depending on one’s view; it was large enough for two people if they weren’t built like linebackers and didn’t mind touching each other. Which Chuck and Sarah didn’t. He stretched, then let his arm slide down Sarah’s back. Just an innocent, or not so innocent gesture of affection.

Until he, his arm still hidden from view by Sarah’s body, pulled out his phone. Sarah stiffened, but that only added to the deception - they might think he had copped a feel. Chuck leaned over and whispered: “Starting a distraction” into her ear. At the same time, he glanced down her back, on the screen of his phone, and started using Dad’s backdoor.

With a laptop and a decent keyboard, he would have finished within a minute. With a phone, and his awkward position, it took over two minutes hanging over Sarah. Not too suspicious for a young couple, or so he hoped.

And done. “Two minutes,” he whispered into Sarah’s ear, then pulled away. 

She glanced at him as if she expected him to start a fire. He had dismissed that early on - the stove wasn’t computer-controlled. 

He gave her a reassuring smile, then focused on the TV screen again. And waited.

Exactly two minutes later, the game suddenly was replaced, in mid-play, even, by a music video featuring two German singers. With the volume turned up to eleven.

“An der Nordseeküste!”

“Am plattdeutschen Strand!”

“Sind die Fischeeeee im Wasser!”

“Und selten an Land!”

Chuck winced. Perhaps he should have started a fire instead.

*****

Sarah quickly clapped her hands over her ears as the two German singers blasted everyone with some incomprehensible song and jumped up. Gonzàlez was cursing and pushing every button on his remote, but the TV screen didn’t change. And everyone was trying to get out of the living room before their ears started bleeding.

“An der Nordseeküste!”

“Am plattdeutschen Strand!”

“Sind die Fischeeeee im Wasser!”

“Und selten an Land!”

It was a good thing Casey wasn’t present. He would probably kill Chuck for this.

But then she was in the hallway, and with everyone running around, it was easy to push open the door to Gonzàlez’s bedroom and use the camera hidden in her bracer to take pictures before she left, ‘looking for the door’.

“Nach Flut kommt die Ebbe!”

“Nach Ebbe die Flut!”

Chuck had stumbled into Bessons’s room, with his phone out. That left Lopez’s room to her.

“Die Deiche!”

“Sie halten mal schlecht und mal gut!”

Sarah tried to open Lopez’s door, but it was locked. Damn. Still, two out of three wasn’t bad.

“Die Dänen!”

“Sie wandern am Strand hin und her!”

“Von Grönland nach Flan…”

Then the song was finally cut off, and everyone took a deep breath.

“What happened?”

“Did you sit on the remote?”

“What was that?”

“I didn’t even know we had that channel.”

“Forget about it, get the game back up!”

“But check the sound first; my ears are still bleeding.”

“What?”

Come to think of, Sarah’s ears were also hurting. Chuck really had to work on his improvised distractions.

*****

“It must have been the fault of the cable company,” Chavez said. “I can’t find anything wrong with the system here.”

Chuck doubted that, as Casey would put it, the man could find his own butt with a map and a compass, and he was sure that Chavez had no idea about computers other than where to order the latest most expensive model every year. Still, he nodded in apparent agreement - Charles Black wasn’t an IT specialist, after all. 

“They’ll get a complaint, I’ll assure you. I’m not paying for premium service to suffer such an…” Gonzàlez trailed off, huffing.

“...an assault on our years and taste?” Chuck offered before he could help himself.

The drug lord blinked at him as if noticing him for the first time, then broke out in a wide smile. “Exactly, Charles!” Then the man clapped Chuck on the back. “But enough of that! Let’s enjoy the game!”

Chuck agreed, rubbing his shoulder surreptitiously, and retook his seat with the others. As did Sarah. A few minutes later, she leaned in and whispered into his ear: “Lopez’s room was locked.”

Chuck nodded and smiled as if he had just heard something naughty. Locking her own room? That sounded paranoid to him. Unless you were inside and really couldn’t afford to be disturbed.

But what could they do now? The bad guys might’ve accepted a mistake on the part of their cable provider - such things happened, as anyone working at Nerd Herd would be able to testify - but another such event wouldn’t have the same effect, and might make them suspect something else. At least Lopez and Besson might. And Dubois remained a wild card.

What did the French spy know? If she had been investigating Gonzàlez for some time, she might be able to unravel their planned frame job. That would be bad for Chuck’s dad. It would be bad for everyone else involved as well, of course.

So, another channel switching was out. But Chuck couldn’t think of another distraction. None that wouldn’t do more harm than good by attracting attention to himself or the apartment.

By the time the game finished, he still hadn’t found a solution, or a way into the locked room. And, a quick check concealed as a public display of affection revealed, neither had Sarah.

*****

Back in their temporary apartment, things weren’t looking any better. “You got lucky,” Casey commented after Sarah had finished telling him what they had done. “If they were any better at computers, they would have noticed your hack.” He took a bite out of a big sandwich.

“They would have to be better than Dad to notice what I’ve done,” Chuck protested. “And if they were, he wouldn’t have been able to hack their systems.” He didn’t like to rely on Dad like this, but it was a fact that his father was the better hacker. Chuck still had a lot to learn.

Casey scoffed. “Let’s hope they weren’t just fooling you and are now checking their systems.”

Chuck pressed his lips together and swallowed his reply - he didn’t want to sound like a kid boasting about his dad.

“Their reactions looked genuine to me,” Sarah said.

“Apart from Dubois,” Casey retorted. “She’s a threat.”

“A potential threat,” Sarah corrected him.”

“Uh…” Chuck knew what Casey meant. But they wouldn’t kill a nominal ally - sort of; the French and the US were both NATO members, weren’t they? - just to be on the safe side, would they? Stupid question; Casey totally would. But Sarah wouldn’t, and Dad wouldn’t allow this, either. Chuck hoped so, at least.

“Relax. We’re not eliminating her before we know her mission, and who else is involved,” Casey said. 

That didn’t make Chuck relax at all. And not just because he didn’t know how they’d do it. “Can we do that without tipping our hand?” Dad wouldn’t have backdoors into the DGSE’s computers, would he?

Casey grumbled something and glared at him, so the answer was probably ‘No’.

“So... what do we do?”

*****

The answer was, Chuck found out quickly, ‘analyse the pictures we took and prepare the mission’. 

"Alright. So we got the route planned out," Casey said, half an hour later, as he tapped the floorplans on the kitchen table.

“We still don’t know what Lopez has in her room,” Chuck pointed out.

“Unless she’s hiding a tank in there, we can deal with it,” the NSA Agent replied.

Chuck was wondering what the point of sneaking into their rooms had been, then. He didn’t wonder that out loud, though.

“If all goes according to plan, she won’t even notice our presence until it’s too late,” Sarah said.

“Unless she’s in his bedroom, screwing him,” Casey said with a sneer. “Men like Gonzàlez always have a woman around to show how macho they are, and he didn’t have one today.”

That was a good, if crudely put, point. “He could be having an affair with Besson,” Chuck replied.

“I doubt that he’d invite Fankhauser over,” Casey retorted. “If he were that stupid, he’d have been killed by a jealous husband long ago. I know his kind of people.”

Probably a little too well, Chuck thought. “So… now we wait for more information about Dubois?”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “We’ll get you more files to analyse.”

To see if he’d flash, in other words. Chuck nodded. At least he was better at that than Dad. Even without the Intersect kicking in.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 4th, 2008**

Dubois must have been very active, a real go-getter, if the CIA had this much intel on her past missions, Chuck thought as he started going through the files he had on his private laptop courtesy of Sarah and Dad. On the other hand, how good could she be as a spy if so much about her work was known?

Apparently, quite good, he thought with a wince after he had read the first file in the queue. He would have thought taking out a rebel leader by herself inside the man’s compound and escaping from the middle of a jungle would have been a suicide mission, but Dubois apparently had pulled it off with flying colours.

He took a sip from his coffee - the new apartment also had a better coffee maker than they had at home, another item for the list - and opened the next file. It covered the assassination of a businessman financing terrorists. In the man’s private island.

There seemed to be a theme here...

After the fourth file, Chuck was sure of it. “She’s an assassin. Four missions so far, four assassinations.”

She nodded, but said: “Check all of them, though.”

“Of course.” He still hadn’t flashed, after all.

But as soon as he opened the next file, he did.

*****


	30. The French Connection Part 2

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 4th, 2008**

Chuck saw a body - another government assassination. No, a murder! That was Dubois’s superior. File after file went past his field of vision. An internal investigation. Suspicion of corruption. Of Dubois. Another body - the investigator of the case. Both killed with a bullet to the head. Dubois’s style. Who was listed as “missing in action” in the French files. As was...

He shook his head, blinking. “Dubois’s gone rogue,” he blurted out. “And she’s working with Besson.”

Sarah calmly nodded, but Chuck noticed how her lips had thinned - she wasn’t happy. 

“So the question is: Who are they working for?” Chuck went on. “The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure was suspecting drug cartel interference with some of their Caribbean operations, but that doesn’t tell us much, does it?”

“She could be working for Gonzàlez, investigating a business partner - or prospective business partner - of his. If Fankhauser is laundering Gonzàlez’s money, then that would be a good reason to keep an assassin near the banker,” she said.

“Unless she was framed and trying to bring him down,” Chuck said.

Sarah didn’t look convinced. “If she’s working with Besson, then they could have killed Gonzalez easily.”

“Unless they want proof to bring him down.”

Well, she didn’t laugh out loud, but she looked even more sceptical. “She’s an assassin. Why would she bother with that?”

“To clear her name?” Chuck shrugged a little.

“You’ve seen the files. Do you think she’s innocent and was framed?” Sarah asked.

“Well…” If she had been, then someone had made a lot of effort to frame her. The files did look very convincing.

“It probably would’ve been easier to kill her, instead of framing her and letting her live to get revenge if that were the case,” she commented. “And people like Gonzàlez aren’t in the habit of letting enemies live - or witnesses.”

Chuck winced a little at the reminder that their jovial neighbour was a cold-blooded killer and drug lord. “So, it’s more likely that she’s working for Gonzàlez?”

“Yes. And that is a problem,” Sarah told him. “If he’s taken her into confidence, then she’ll be aware that he wasn’t interested in you. And that will point directly at you.”

That would be a very bad thing. “But would she know about our cover story?” he asked. “The CIA would squash the story, wouldn’t it?” The agency wouldn’t want anyone to take a closer look at their Intersect, including the police.

“It should,” Sarah admitted. “But the CIA isn’t perfect. And we will have to leave enough evidence to fool the agency - which means that if Dubois investigates herself, she might get ahold of some clues. At least, if she’s quick enough.”

“Ah.” He winced again as he understood what she was talking about. “ _That_ kind of problem.” The sort of problem Casey liked to solve with violence. He took a deep breath. “But if she’s a framed spy herself…”

“We don’t know that. As I said, it’s unlikely if she’s working with Besson,” Sarah replied.

“But what if she is, and being a double-agent for herself? Using Besson to get close to Gonzàlez?” Chuck pointed out. They couldn’t kill someone who might be innocent just to be safe, could they? Well, relatively innocent - Dubois had killed a number of people for the DGSE, after all.

Sarah hesitated a moment, and Chuck held his breath. Was she about to suggest...

“I think we need to discuss it with your father,” she said.

“Oh.” He blinked. “Uh, sure.”

*****

The smart thing - the spy thing - would be to simply get rid of Dubois. And Besson, of course. Either would make a good scapegoat - whether they were spies, double-agents or criminals, a shootout that left Gonzàlez dead and them missing would fit almost every possibility. Undercover missions, especially long-term ones, did carry the risk of a spy turning coat. Sarah was glad she had never undertaken such a mission. Which was probably because of her background - she knew some people, likely including the general, were suspicious of her loyalty due to her past.

That, ironically, hadn’t influenced her plans to quit the agency and join the Council at all, though no one would believe that.

She shook her head as she set a pot of water on the stove. They’d have pasta for dinner, with a nice cheese sauce. Parmigiano e mascarpone.

She sighed. Yes, the spy thing would be to kill Dubois. But it wouldn’t be the Chuck thing. Or the Council thing. They would have to investigate the French woman and find out what she was doing in Los Angeles, and for whom.

At least the mess would force Orion to show his true colours - how far was he willing to go to return to his family?

Sarah was curious to find out. And dreaded the effect on Chuck if the answer to her question would be ‘too far’.

But they, especially Chuck, had to know.

*****

Dad arrived shortly before midnight. He must be staying in the city, then, Chuck concluded. Or at least in the suburbs. Traffic wouldn’t have been bad at this time, so that widened the potential distance he could have covered, but if he delayed his arrival deliberately… Chuck blinked. Was he actually expecting his Dad to take such steps to fool them? Well, Dad hadn’t told them where he was staying so they couldn’t be forced to reveal his location, and he was hunted by the CIA and NSA, but still… Chuck shook his head as the doorbell rang.

“Having second thoughts about asking Daddy?” Casey, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, asked.

Chuck rolled his eyes. The NSA agent had made his opinion of how this problem should be dealt with clear. Very clear. “Just a thought,” he said as he went to open the door.

Casey grunted something Chuck didn’t manage to understand. Not that he cared. Not really.

He checked the cameras covering the door - both the one that had come with the apartment and the one they had installed afterwards. That was Dad, and he was alone.

“Chuck. We need to stop meeting like this.” Dad flashed him a wry smile.

“Like this?” Chuck cocked his head.

“In the middle of the night. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

“Uh, yes,” Chuck managed to say. “We’re in the living room,” he added - pointlessly since it was obvious.

“Good evening, everyone.”

“Hello.”

“Evening.”

Chuck followed his Dad in and took his seat on the couch, next to Sarah.

“So… I ran a few searches on the way here,” Dad began as soon as he had taken a seat as well. “Unfortunately, they were inconclusive. My available sources didn’t know anything about Dubois or Besson that Chuck didn’t cover already. That leaves us with a problem.”

“And an easy solution,” Casey spat from his spot at the wall.

Dad winced at that. “I would rather not have an innocent life on my conscience.”

“She’s a spy - she’s hardly innocent,” Casey retorted. “She’s murdered people before.”

“Everyone here did, I think,” Chuck pointed out. “She is, or was, a government spy.”

“A _French_ spy,” Casey said with a sneer. “Running an operation on American soil. If she’s still working for the DGSE, she would’ve known the risk.” He nodded at Sarah. “Walker’s killed a few of their spies before.”

Chuck winced even as Sarah cooly replied: “That was part of my mission.”

“And this is our mission. Sucks to be a Frenchie.”

Chuck wondered - not out loud, of course - if Casey had issues with the French. “But that doesn’t mean we have to kill them.”

“Exactly,” Dad agreed - although, perhaps, a little late. “But it does mean we need to find out what they are doing in Los Angeles.”

“Even if they’re here because they’re also after Gonzàlez, they are a threat to our mission. We don’t know what they know, and so we can’t anticipate their reaction to our plan.” Casey scoffed. “And if we make them tell us, they’ll know too much. Better just neutralise them.”

“That would have to happen at the same time as our mission, though,” Sarah pointed out, “or either Dubois or Gonzàlez will be alerted.”

“A small challenge with the right preparations,” Casey replied.

“Uh, guys,” Chuck spoke up. “Can we take, like, a step back and go over whether or not we have to kill them again before we start sorting out the logistics? Because I don’t think we agreed on killing them.” He didn’t wince at Casey’s glare and didn’t look at Sarah as he spoke.

“Well, even if we manage to hack into the French servers,” Dad said, “there might not be any information if this is a black op.”

“If this is a black op, then we’ve got grounds to kill them for running a hostile operation on our soil,” Casey replied.

“Whoa, whoa!” Chuck shook his head. “We’ve been pulling stuff like that.”

“And if we get caught, we can expect a bullet to the back,” Casey said, baring his teeth. “Afraid, Bartowski?”

“No,” Chuck replied out of reflex. It wasn’t a lie - he hadn’t considered this before, so he hadn’t known to be afraid. And once they were working for the Council, it would be different anyway. “Just mentioning that, well…” He shrugged. “It doesn’t feel right killing what might be people planning to do the same we do.”

“So we need to find out what they are planning,” Dad said. “Preferably without asking our prospective employers for help, I think.”

“Won’t impress them if we can’t handle a simple problem,” Casey said.

“It won’t impress the Council if we kill innocents, either,” Chuck retorted.

“They’re not innocents,” the NSA agent repeated.

“It seems we’re stuck, then,” Dad commented.

Chuck wet his lips. They couldn’t just kill the French. But they couldn’t just call Willow for help, either. That would… well, they were supposed to solve spy problems for the Council, weren’t they? Not create more spy problems. He blinked, “Guys! I have an idea!”

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Hollywood, February 5th, 2008**

Chuck adjusted the baseball cap proclaiming him to be an employee of Comcast so it would hide his face from the security camera and approached the desk. The fake moustache itched almost as badly as the slightly too much starched overall he was wearing, but both served to disguise him further, so he had to bear it. I had been his idea, anyway, and he was the one with the skills to pull this off. Well, apart from Dad, who was a little too old to play a cable guy.

Although, in hindsight, Chuck had to admit, his idea wasn’t anything special. But, at least, ‘let’s put Dubois under surveillance and find out what she’s planning’ had been acceptable enough as a solution for everyone. The least common denominator. Or, perhaps more accurate, the least evil from everyone’s point of view.

“Hello,” he greeted the clerk at the desk, banishing the idle thoughts. He was on a mission now. “I was told you had trouble with your Internet connection?”

“Oh, yes!” The woman nodded, seemingly relieved. “An entire floor has technical troubles.”

She must have been swamped with complaints - the kind of people leasing high-end condos such as these weren’t the kind of people to take any outages lightly or to understand that it wasn’t the fault of the person manning the desk in the lobby. Chuck felt a little guilty; Dad had hacked Comcast to arrange this. 

“Ah, yes. Looks like a local problem. Probably a faulty wire. You don’t have a rat or mouse problem, do you? The little critters love to chew on wires.” Chuck did his best to sound almost-bored.

“What? No!” She shook her head rather emphatically.

“Well, we’ll see.” He shrugged. “Can you show me to the routers?”

“Yes. Please follow me. They’re in the basement.”

“Where else would they be?” He chuckled at his not-joke as he followed the woman to the staircase. A little later, he was wondering why the building wasn’t suffering service outages far more often - the electronics were in an appalling state!

He gladly told the woman so, and she quickly claimed that she had to return to the desk, leaving him alone. And without a camera covering him, as he confirmed. Perfect.

He ignored the ‘faulty box’ handling the affected floor - it was working perfectly fine after all; Dad had cut the service at the main hub and could easily restore it once Chuck gave the word. Instead, Chuck focused on the box handling the intercom.

Dubois was an experienced spy, but he doubted that she was regularly checking the building’s electronic hubs to avoid her intercom’s microphone being turned into a surveillance device. Without even being near her apartment, too. It seemed that sometimes, the penny-pinching of various firms by using substandard and not perfectly safe components and systems came in very handy for a spy,

Between Dad’s hacking of the lines at Comcast and this little trick, they should soon know what Dubois was planning.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 6th, 2008**

Another mission during a mission. And barely two days after the game night incident, which should count as a separate mission by itself, in Sarah’s opinion. Chuck had managed to settle the dispute about how to deal with Dubois - and mostly in his favour - but it certainly made for more work.

At least her own part was rather simple - she’d done that kind of job before. And as usual, the waiting was the hard part. And the most dangerous - she couldn’t just wait in the car. That would look suspicious to even the most cursory investigation. Which meant she needed an early warning system, as Chuck would have called it, so she could get the timing right.

Of course, Orion had been happy to help, handling the electronic surveillance of Fankhauser’s office. So she could sit in the latest Starbucks and fake texting as a cover for checking the alert from Orion while she waited. And trying to ignore the inserts inside her mouth that made her face look rounder while she drank her overpriced latte macchiato. Just another tourist, slightly pudgy, going for the familiar brand rather than trying something local.

Just how much overtime was Fankhauser planning to pull today? How much more than usual, to be exact - thanks to Orion, they knew his working hours for the last six months.

Finally, the expected alert appeared on her phone. Fankhauser had logged out and was on the move. She put a smile on her face, quickly finished her coffee, and left the café. 

Sarah reached the rented car before Fankhauser appeared in the parking lot. Just as planned. By the time he was walking towards his sports car, she was already moving in her SUV. Now to sell the act… She pulled her phone out as she took the corner and came up behind the walking banker and lined up her car.

Then she ‘slipped’ and pushed the gas. Fankhauser had time to turn so she saw his shocked face the moment before she hit him, sending him to the ground with at least a broken leg.

She stopped, stared at him with a fake gasp, phone still pressed against her ear, then drove away.

Just a tourist using a phone while driving, hitting a pedestrian and panicking. She doubted that the LAPD would even bother trying to track her fake ID in Brazil. Dubois would, probably - but they were prepared for that.

As Casey and Orion were prepared to track Fankhauser to the hospital.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 6th, 2008**

“Any change?”

Chuck looked up from his laptop and bit back the ‘I’d have told you already’ remark. Casey wasn’t the most easy-going guy on a good day, and during a mission, he was worse. “No. Dubois hasn’t contacted anyone yet.” As far as Chuck could tell. “But she was informed about Fankhauser’s accident.”

“No checks, either?” Sarah had finished her shower and returned to the living room as well.

“None,” Chuck replied. 

“She’s probably waiting until she knows how bad his wounds are.” Sarah disappeared into the bedroom.

“Should’ve just killed the crook,” Casey grumbled. “That’d either push her to action or make her pull out, depending on what her goal was.”

Chuck had to refrain from commenting once more. Casey was as bloodthirsty as a Slayer, sometimes. Often, actually - no wonder Caridad was still carrying a torch for him. Or something. “Uh, so… its phase two,” he said instead. Which was a nice, clean way for saying ‘let’s put the guy into a coma’. 

“Should’ve just kidnapped him. He should know a lot about various groups thanks to his money laundering business,” Casey said.

He really seemed to have some issues with Chuck’s ‘don’t just kill or vanish people to be safe’ plan. “Him slipping into a coma that appears to be long term should be enough to get a reaction out of Dubois,” Chuck defended his plan. Even though that part hadn’t been his idea, actually, nor the whole ‘hurt Fankhauser to force a reaction’ - but everyone else had agreed that they couldn’t just wait for Dubois to slip up.

“Let’s hope so,” Casey told him with a sneer. “And let’s hope there’s a mistake, and the coma really becomes irreversible.”

“Uh… I can’t help noticing a certain amount of hostility here,” Chuck said.

“No shit, Sherlock.” The man sneered at him. “Without scum like him laundering money, criminals, terrorists and corrupt officials would have a much harder time with finances.”

“Ah.” That made sense. Some. Casey still appeared rather bloodthirsty, to Chuck at least.

“So, let’s go. Fankhauser won’t be putting himself into a coma.” The agent stood up.

“Well, he made a good effort at the Superbowl party,” Chuck pointed out, “he must have drunk an entire bottle of Gonzàlez’s finest himself.”

“Not everyone’s a lightweight, Bartowski. Some people can hold their liquor.”

Chuck’s comeback - which he would have thought of any second - was interrupted by Sarah returning to the living room. “Let’s go. We need to have this done before Fankhauser wakes up after surgery.”

“Alright. I’ll be here, checking Dubois’s communications,” Chuck told the two spies as they left.

“You do that, Bartowski.”

*****

“I’m headed to the nurse station.”

That was Sarah disguised as a nurse. A real nurse, not a sexy Halloween costume. She still looked sexy, of course.

“I’ve got eyes on Dubois. She’s still in the waiting room.”

And Casey. So, Fankhauser was still recovering from his surgery, and a mere girlfriend wasn’t allowed to visit yet. Things were proceeding according to plan, then, judging by what Chuck heard over the radio.

Chuck checked the feeds from the cameras covering Gonzàlez’s apartment - no change there - and Dubois’s communication before he leaned back and sighed. He didn’t like to be mission control, overwatch or whatever you called the guys who stayed safely at home while other spies risked their lives. Especially if it was his plan, so his responsibility. Or something.

But someone had to do it, apparently. And Chuck had drawn the short straw. Or been picked by Casey and Sarah. 

He closed his eyes and sighed again - after checking that the microphone was off. Wouldn’t do to repeat that mistake; it had been embarrassing enough when he had done it in that HALO match...

A beep interrupted his thoughts. A Skype call? On this computer? Who would… Oh. No identity. Of course. He accepted the call, without using the camera, of course. “Hi.”

“Hi.” It was his Dad, as expected. At least Chuck’s father hadn’t just turned the camera on made him accept the call - Chuck really needed to step up his IT game. So to speak. “Are you busy?”

Dad knew what they were doing, so why would he ask? Ah. “Just staring at a screen,” Chuck said. And being bored, he didn’t say.

“Mind a visit?”

Chuck sat straighter. Something had to come up, then. Dad hadn’t used any code words to indicate he was under duress, but that didn’t have to mean everything was fine. “Sure, if you’re in the area.”

“Alright.”

The call ended, and a minute later, the doorbell rang.

Chuck went through the usual checks before opening the door, of course, but it was Dad.

“What’s up, Dad?” he asked once they were back in the living room.

“I thought I’d visit,” his father answered. “I know it’s not easy watching a computer while others risk their lives on your orders.”

“Oh?” Chuck blinked.

His father chuckled in response. “I’ve needed help on occasion, to keep ahead of the CIA. Hired help, and I’ve never met them face to face, but I know the feeling.”

“Ah.” Chuck nodded. That made sense. “And so you came to give me a pep talk?” That was both nice and kind of annoying.

“I can give you one if you want one.” Dad took a deep breath. “But I came to talk about something else. Us.” 

Oh. “Us.” Chuck sat down again - he had to keep an eye on the computer, and the radio, didn’t he? They were on a mission. Anything could go wrong.

“Yes, us,” Dad said, taking a seat on the couch. “You, me, Ellie. My future son-in-law, probably too.”

“Captain Awesome.”

Dad had a brief chuckle at that. “He seems to be an impressive young man.”

Chuck didn’t frown. He wasn’t jealous. He might not be a surgeon, top athlete and perfect boyfriend, but he was a high-level CIA asset. Currently running a mission to fool the CIA, but that was a technicality. And he had helped save the world, or at least a city, on several occasions. Really.

“You’re an impressive young man as well, Son,” Dad went on.

“Thanks,” Chuck replied in a flat voice, checking the feeds on his laptop. Everything seemed to be going well, though - Sarah was on the way to Fankhauser’s room, and Dubois hadn’t moved from the lobby, yet.

“I mean it, Chuck.”

“I know.” But the way Dad said it… it grated. He kept his eyes on the screen. That was what a professional spy would do, right?

“I’m sorry about leaving you and Ellie.”

Chuck almost said ‘I know’ again. “You had your reasons.”

“I might have found another way to protect you, instead of leaving you on a Hellmouth.”

“You didn’t know about that.” Chuck held up a hand before Dad could reply, grabbing the headphones with the other.

“I’m on the stairs,” Sarah reported.

“Dubois is still not moving,” Casey added.

Chuck hit a few keys, switching the cameras covering Fankhauser’s room and the hallway leading to it to pre-recorded loops so Sarah wouldn’t appear on them. Just in case there would be an investigation. A click had the real feed appear in separate windows on his screen. He really needed a bigger laptop for such missions.

There was Sarah, walking at a brisk but not overly hurried pace towards the target’s room. Dubois was still staying put.

“She knows what she is doing,” Dad said,

Chuck ignored him. Sarah was a veteran spy, but something could still go wrong. He wet his lips as she entered the room, closed the door and approached the still unconscious banker in the bed. He checked the other cameras when she pulled the syringe out - just in case trouble was brewing.

“Done,” Sarah reported.

As soon as she had left the room, Chuck switched the loop off. Same for the hallway once she was on the stairs. A few minutes later, she was at the backdoor, her nurse clothes hidden under a long coat - just when Fankhauser’s medical monitors were going off.

“I’ve left the building,” she reported.

Chuck sighed. Mission accomplished.

“She’s good,” Dad said.

Chuck looked at him. “You don’t have to praise us to talk to me.”

Dad chuckled again, but it sounded a little forced. Well, Chuck had let some of his anger at having been left seep into his tone. “I’ve got over a decade to make up for.”

“Don’t try too hard,” Chuck replied, turning to face him after Casey had withdrawn. “I’m not a teenager any more. And neither is Ellie.”

Dad sighed again. “Ellie…”

So that was what this was about. “She won’t be happy with you.”

His father winced. “I know that. She was always a rather headstrong girl.”

“Yes. And having to raise me didn’t help,” Chuck pointed out. He felt satisfaction at seeing his father wincing again, followed by shame. He should be better than that. “She didn’t like that I kept my CIA career a secret from her.”

“But did she understand?”

Chuck sighed. “She accepted it. But she doesn’t like our plans to work for the Council. She wants to keep me safe.”

“I can understand that.” Dad smiled, though more wistfully.

“Well, I’m not a kid any more,” Chuck retorted before realising that that made him sound like a teenager. “I like to keep _her_ safe, and that means stepping up when a demon wants to destroy the world or the city.”

Dad nodded. “She’s like her mother.”

Now it was Chuck’s turn to wince. “Mom…” He sighed. “She didn’t go underground like you.”

“No, she didn’t. I would have known.”

Chuck sighed again.

“Do you think Ellie will forgive me?”

“Yes. Eventually.”

“Before or after the wedding?”

“Probably before the wedding. You’ll be expected to do your part,” Chuck told him. Like with her Christmas party, Ellie liked for things to go according to plan.

“I haven’t even met her fiancé yet.”

“You will,” Chuck told him. Although whether that would be after or while Ellie spent a few hours telling Dad off, Chuck couldn’t say.

“Can you… sound her out?”

“You mean putting in a good word for you?” Chuck asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes.”

His Dad had no shame. Chuck sighed. “I’ll do my best.”

He could hardly do less for his family. Even if this was, mostly, Dad’s own fault.

Mostly.

*****

Sarah was smiling when she approached their temporary home. Her nurse uniform wasn’t a ‘sexy costume’ but it certainly did look well enough for some sexy roleplay, or at least heavy flirting. Chuck’s imagination would do the rest, and he would likely be charmingly flustered… With Casey on the way back to Echo Park, they would have ample time, too.

Then she opened the door, and her fantasy died.

“Hello, Sarah.”

“Uh, hi!”

She was getting really tired of unexpectedly meeting Chuck’s father. “Hello,” she greeted them with a nod, then narrowed her eyes at Chuck when she walked past him to the bedroom. He cringed, and with good reason. He should have warned her.

Once in the bedroom, she quickly changed out of her nurse uniform and slipped into a shirt and jeans, then rejoined the Bartowskis in the living room. “Any reaction by Dubois?” she asked, not expecting a positive answer - it was too soon.

“Nothing yet,” Chuck told her. “But she’s still at the hospital.”

“Playing her role,” Sarah said, nodding. “And Besson will be informed through Gonzàlez.” The drug lord was a friend of Fankhauser, after all.

“And we’ll observe his reaction - if there’s any,” Orion agreed. 

But they’d have to tail the man for that if he used a dead drop or otherwise avoided electronic communication. And with Casey running interference at home, that left Sarah - neither Orion nor Chuck were experienced enough to tail a trained spy. Not without getting spotted.

She looked over Chuck’s shoulder at the laptop’s screen. No change so far - Dubois had left the lounge and was now in some sort of waiting area.

“The computers won’t report the substance you injected him with,” Orion told her, unnecessarily - she was well aware of that. Otherwise, the whole mission wouldn’t have made any sense.

She leaned forward a little, pointing at the screen while putting her free hand on Chuck’s shoulder, and could feel him take a surprised, deeper breath. “Can you switch to Fankhauser’s room?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Thank you.” The doctors inside the room didn’t look too concerned. They were merely watching the readouts and files, or so it seemed. Waiting for the blood analysis, Sarah thought. Dubois wouldn’t do anything until she knew the diagnosis. “I’ll take a nap so I can relieve you later,” she told Chuck, nodded at Orion, and went back to the bedroom.

*****

Chuck watched Sarah disappear in the bedroom and winced again. She wasn’t happy about Dad’s presence. Well, that wasn’t his fault - he couldn’t very well kick his father out, could he? Especially not on a mission run by him.

But he probably should’ve notified her in advance. Sighing, he looked back at the screen. No change so far with either Dubois or Besson.

“It’ll take a while for the doctors to diagnose what we did,” Dad told him.

“I know.” That didn’t make it any easier to wait, though. It was getting late, too. 

“Also, I’m sorry for, ah, interrupting your private time once more,” Dad added.

Oh. “We’re on a mission,” Chuck told him. And hoped that he wasn’t blushing too much.

“Of course.”

Nope, he hadn’t managed it. Chuck pressed his lips together. He was very glad that Dad was back - and working on staying with them for good - but Chuck could do without feeling like a flustered teenager. Time to change the subject. “So, what exploit did you use to hack the hospital’s analysis machines?” Those were generally very well protected to prevent the exact thing they had just done.

“Oh, I have a backdoor into the firm that produces and maintains them,” Dad replied. “I installed it years ago. It’s very helpful to arrange some MRI time, too.”

That made sense. “And how did you get that?”

“I used a CIA virus to hack their remote-update system. It was quite simple, actually, once you did...”

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 7th, 2008**

“...and that’s how I bypassed the phone’s password,” Chuck finished.

“I see.” Dad sounded impressed. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“Well, you don’t deal every day with people locking themselves out of their phones or breaking them,” Chuck replied. He was very familiar with the hardware in any phone, as a result. Hm. Could he bill his Nerd Herd time as training to the CIA? That would…

An alert on his laptop interrupted his thoughts. Besson was awake and looking at his phone. Not his regular phone, either. And he was texting back.

“Burner phone,” Dad told him. “I’m checking the cell tower.”

A few minutes later, they had the messages. Two burner phones, ‘63’ and ‘304’.

“It’s a code,” Dad said. “Hard to crack. Probably…”

But Chuck was flashing. Besson. In uniform. The French Foreign Legion. A ceremony. A wooden hand. And a date.

He gasped. “63 and 304. April 30th, 1863. The Battle of Camerone. The most famous battle of the French Foreign Legion.” Against the Mexicans, too. He looked at Dad. “She told him to continue with the mission no matter what.”

*****

“...and she still hasn’t called Gonzàlez, which she would’ve done if she were working for him to keep an eye on Fankhauser. So we know Dubois is calling the shots, but we still don’t know if they’re working for the French government, sanctioned or not, or if this is a private, uh, mission,” Chuck finished explaining what they had found out to Sarah. “Or what their mission actually is.”

“If this were DGSE mission, I doubt that they would use such obvious codes, she replied. “Dubois would know better - but if Besson isn’t a trained spy, but a mercenary, it might’ve been the best that she could trust him to remember.”

That wasn’t a very favourable view of the former legionnaire, in Chuck’s opinion. He had never had trouble remembering codes or code names - without any help from the Intersect.

“There’s also the fact that Dubois’s an assassin,” Dad pointed out. “And this doesn’t look like an assassination mission.” Left unsaid was that Gonzàlez was the obvious target, and Dubois and Besson would’ve had ample opportunities to get him. “While I don’t doubt that she can do other missions, I don’t think she was the only spy available to the French. And if she was framed, they could have cleared her without sending her on this mission.”

Sarah nodded. “It looks like she’s on her own. And it’s not just some revenge for getting framed.”

“She could still be trying to find proof of her innocence, couldn’t she?” Chuck asked. “Relative innocence, I mean.” The woman was an assassin, after all.

Both Sarah and Dad looked at him as if he had said something stupid.

“If she went through Fankhauser, she probably wants the money,” Dad said.

Sarah nodded in apparent agreement.

“So we’re going to kill them on a suspicion?” Chuck asked.

After a way too long moment, Dad said: “We’ll investigate further.”

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 7th, 2008**

Chuck suppressed a yawn as he clicked his way through more financial records. He had stayed up far too late last night. If Big Mike decided to check if Chuck actually was sick, he would be convinced without trouble. Of course, Big Mike didn’t do home visits, and if he did, he’d visit Chuck’s currently empty apartment in Echo Park. Which would be all kinds of bad.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. With Sarah at the Wienerlicious - they couldn’t let Bane grow suspicious - and Casey at the Buy More for the same reason, holding down the fort fell to Chuck and Dad, and Dad was currently sleeping. On the couch, of course - Chuck didn’t want to make Sarah madder than she already was by having Dad sleep in their bed. She’d been annoyed enough at Dad’s presence in the first place. 

But that couldn’t be helped. They needed more information, and Dad was - Chuck had to admit - the best hacker they knew. And needed - they couldn’t just kill two spies without knowing whether or not they were enemies. Well, they could, but they shouldn’t.

Chuck had been telling himself that a lot lately. But it was true, no matter how tiring - exhausting - it turned out to be to do the right thing. Or boring - sifting through financial records was mind-numbing. How could accountants stand this? If he had to read through another column of micro-transactions - did Fankhauser ever pay anything in cash? - he’d…

Oh. That was Dubois’s car that had just entered the garage. She was visiting Gonzàlez? Chuck blinked. That was… “Dad! Get up!” he yelled.

“Huh? What?”

“Dad! Dubois’s here. In the building, I mean - not in the apartment. She must be visiting Gonzàlez!”

That finally made his father get up from the couch and join him at the table, just in time to catch her on the cameras covering the garage as she left her car and walked towards the lift.

“You’re right. She probably feels now is a good time to tell Gonzàlez about Fankhauser’s accident,” he said after a moment. “If she had called him right away, it would have looked suspicious, but now… perhaps she’ll attempt to play the near-widow for sympathy.”

“Ah.” Chuck should’ve thought of that himself. After all, if Fankhauser was her link to Gonzàlez, she wouldn’t be able to easily visit the drug lord with the banker in a coma. Playing the distressed girlfriend in need of some support might get her an in, here. Although she’d have to work hard to keep that going - unless Gonzàlez counted her as family of a friend. Didn’t drug lords have some social obligations for their minions’ families? Like the mob? That was how the cartels kept the loyalty of their members.

He nodded. That made sense - Dubois was continuing the mission, as she had announced to Besson.

“That’s not Gonzàlez’s floor,” Dad interrupted his thoughts. “That’s our floor.”

Chuck gasped. Dad was correct - the French assassin stepping out of the lift wasn’t headed towards Gonzàlez.

She was headed towards their apartment.

*****


	31. The French Connection Part 3

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 7th, 2008**

Chuck glanced at his father. “Hide in the bedroom!”

“Under the bed or in the armoire?” Dad replied.

Was he joking? At this moment? “Wherever you want!” Chuck hissed. “Just hide!” If Dubois saw his dad, their whole mission would be ruined!

“Chuck, just don’t answer the door - she’ll assume you’re at work.”

He blinked. “Uh.” Dad was right - he didn’t have to answer the door. No one knew he was in the apartment - he was supposed to be at work, after all. “Right.”

He still wet his lips with his tongue while the assassin reached the door, and the sound of the doorbell almost made him jerk. He shook his head at his own folly - an experienced spy wouldn’t have panicked like this.

On the screen, he saw Dubois staring at the door, then ringing the bell again. Chuck held his breath. She had no way to know that he was in the apartment. Neither the TV nor the radio were running. And the curtains prevented anyone outside from looking in. He was safe. They were safe.

In front of the door, Dubois nodded. She must have come to the desired conclusion. Perhaps she would return in the evening - Chuck would have to inform Sarah and Casey. They would have ample time to prepare.

Or, Chuck corrected himself with a sinking feeling as he saw her pulling familiar tools out of her purse, perhaps she would decide to break into the apartment.

Once more, he had the urge to hide - perhaps in the armoire. Dad and him would… No. If Dubois was willing to break into their apartment, she would also search it. “Dad, come with me!” he whispered as he hurried into the bedroom. He dropped on the floor and pulled out the suitcase stashed there. He quickly opened it, then removed the fake bottom, revealing the guns hidden there. 

He grabbed the SMG - a MAC-10 with suppressor - and a magazine, taking a few deep breaths. He wouldn’t have to rush this. The door would take Dubois at least…

The sound of the door opening made him curse. So much for their security! He jumped up and rushed to the bedroom door, inserting the magazine on the way. Pressed against the wall - the side with the heavy shelf in the living room that would stop at least 9mm bullets - he waited and listened. Dubois was good, but he still heard her footsteps. Hallway. Living room. Now!

He slid around the corner, leading with the gun. “Freeze!”

But Dubois wasn’t where he had expected. He dropped down before he had completed his move, rolled - and froze when he felt a muzzle on the back of his head. “Don’t move, Mr Black. And drop your gun.”

This wasn’t the time to be cute and ask if he shouldn’t move, or drop the gun. He dropped it and drew hissing breath through clenched teeth. “Does your boyfriend know that you’re a burglar, Jeanne?”

“My ‘boyfriend’ is in a coma,” she replied. “Which is why I decided to visit you. I’m in need of an investment banker, you know. However, most investment bankers I know don’t own submachine guns for home defence.”

Shit. He tried to play it off. “This is Los Angeles - pistols don’t cut it, you know.”

“Really.” She sounded amused. “Now why don’t I believe…”

“Drop your weapon!”

Dad! He had gotten the drop on her! Perfect!

Or not - Chuck felt the muzzle press even harder against his head. “I think not,” she said. Of course, Dubois wouldn’t drop her weapon. “Drop your weapon, or he dies.”

“Uh…” Chuck bit his lower lip - what could he say in this situation? That wouldn’t get him shot? “Can we talk about this before anyone gets shot? Like me?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I know who you are.”

Chuck gasped and almost turned around out of reflex - which probably would have gotten him shot. What? How had she seen through their cover? And if she knew, who else did?

“You’re killers sent by Espinosa.”

“Uh… no, we aren’t.” Chuck protested.

“You’re not the DEA or the FBI. You would have tried to arrest me if that were the case.”

“And you’re not Fankhauser’s trophy girlfriend,” Dad told her. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“We’re not working for any cartel,” Chuck added. 

“Then who are you working for?” Dubois emphasised her question by pushing her gun’s barrel against Chuck’s head again.

“We’re working for the CIA,” Chuck blurted out.

“What?” 

“Gonzalez is meddling with an operation crucial for national security,” Chuck went on. “We were sent to stop him.”

“The CIA has no permission to operate on US soil,” Dubois retorted.

Chuck forced himself to snort. “Yeah, ‘officially’.” He had to sell this, or he’d be shot to death.

“That means that _I’m_ also meddling with a CIA operation.”

Uh. Chuck grimaced - he hadn’t thought about that. 

“And who are you?” his father asked.

“You don’t expect me to tell you my real name, do you?” She almost giggled, or so it sounded.

“Worth a try,” Dad replied.

“Can we go back to talking about not killing each other?” Chuck asked. He was lying on his stomach on the floor. Not the best position. But not the worst, either. Dubois was crouching to his right - in reach of both his right arm and, should he manage to twist his body enough, his legs. A capoeira technique would fit best - provided he could get Dubois distracted for just a moment. “No one needs to die,” he added.

“Standard CIA operating procedure would disagree,” she retorted.

“And how would you know that?” Dad asked.

“Everyone knows that,” the assassin replied.

But had there been a slight annoyance audible? At her slip? Chuck licked his lips. “So… who are you working for? You’re not American. Not Mexican either. That leaves Europe. British or French?”

“Who said I’m working for someone?”

Yes, she sounded defensive. But that could be an act - she would want them to think that she was working for someone who’d investigate her disappearance. “You don’t seem to be the kind of woman who’d do such a mission on her own.”

She laughed at that. “You have no idea.”

“French, then,” he told her.

He felt the muzzle press even harder against his skull, if only for a moment. “Why do you think so?”

“Your arrogance,” he replied. “That’s French.”

She laughed again, but it sounded a little forced. He was getting to her - but that wouldn’t do anything to save him. He needed a distraction. Just for a moment. But on the floor, his hands in her sight, he couldn’t do anything - if only he were able to activate his phone with a verbal command! Wait… Perhaps… He took a deep breath. “In any case, we can’t stay forever like this. We’ll have to sleep one day. I don’t think you’d agree to take a break for a rest, and continue once the _alarm clock_ goes off?”

“Are you sure you’re a CIA operative? You sound more like a comedian. A bad comedian.”

“It’s hard to be funny with a gun to your head,” he retorted. Had Dad understood his request? “Anyway, if you can’t tell us who’re you’re working for, what about telling us what your goals are? We might come to an arrangement.”

“That would require a lot of trust. It’s hard to trust someone if they’re holding a gun to your head, isn’t it?”

“Well, we told you who we are and what we’re planning.”

“You told me a cover story. No CIA operative would actually reveal their illegal operation like this.”

So, it seemed refuge in audacity was working. “Worth a try,” he said. “In any case…”

“...and in other news…”

In the corner of his eye, Chuck caught Dubois reacting to the TV apparently turning itself on. That was the opportunity he needed.

He flipped on his side, throwing his head back and making Dubois miss with her first shot. Before she could correct her aim, he folded himself like a jackknife, using the momentum to hit her with both his feet.

The impact spoiled her next shot and sent her tumbling head over heels away from Chuck, towards the couch. He used the momentum to push himself into the other direction, behind the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room.

He wished they had hidden a gun there - his submachine gun was still on the floor. He’d have to do without. He crawled forward, then reached up and pulled the cutlery drawer out. The steak knives - brand new, and sharp as hell - were on the left side.

He quickly reached up, grabbed one, and pulled his hand back down - just in time for another bullet to miss it, striking the fridge behind him instead. Damn, Dubois was fast!

And Dad wasn’t as fast with a gun as Chuck had hoped.

But with Dad in the door to the bedroom and Dubois behind the couch, Chuck could flank her if he made it to the hallway, where he could take cover behind the corner. Yes, that would work - with a little distraction.

He moved forward a little, still crouched, and pulled the barstool towards him. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. He threw it so it rolled out of cover behind them, then dashed forward, towards the hallway.

Dubois was even faster than he had expected - he saw her whirl, her gun swinging back to point at him, and dived forward into a combat roll. Two shots missed him - one he felt tugging at his shirt - but then he was in the hallway, behind cover.

Even more important, Dad could see him, and they had Dubois cornered now! She couldn’t cover both of them. Granted, Chuck had only a knife, but Dubois might not know that. And he could throw it, anyway.

He’d prefer to get his submachine gun back, though. But it was out of reach. If he had grabbed it when he’d struck at Dubois… well, he’d have been shot in that case.

He looked at Dad, raising his knife. Dad raised his eyebrows in response. Well, so much for coordination. Chuck pulled his phone out and texted him. I START DISTRACTION. THEN U COVER FIRE.

But before he could put his plan into action, he heard shots - and saw the bullets strike the wall near Dad. Covering fire. He slid around the corner, knife ready to throw, but Dubois was already at the door to the balcony, and he had to jump back behind the corner before she shot him.

Dad left cover to shoot at her but wasn’t fast enough - as Chuck saw when he slid around the corner again, the French spy had already gone through the door and was now on the balcony, behind the wall.

“Which side?” Chuck asked as she dashed across the room to grab his submachine gun.

“Left,” Dad told him, covering the balcony’s door. “We’re on the seventh floor.”

That wouldn’t stop a good spy, though. And Dubois was an excellent spy. But would she expect them to think she was climbing down, and wait in ambush instead? “Wait!” he whispered when Dad was moving forward. “I’m checking the…” He cursed again when he noticed that someone had shot his laptop during the fight. 

“Wait!” he repeated himself and pulled his phone out. He could connect to the cameras covering the balcony with it. “Come on, come on!” he mumbled as his phone struggled to connect - Comcast was obviously a hostile organisation.

Finally! He flipped through the feeds until he saw the balcony - empty. Chuck rushed out at once, followed by his father. “I’ll cover up, you cover down,” he whispered.

Dad nodded, and Chuck took a deep breath. Then he leaned out, gun raised. But he saw no sign of Dubois. “Nothing.”

“Nothing,” Dad replied.

How had she… “She must have climbed onto a balcony and broken into the apartment.”

Chuck flipped through the feeds on his phone. Would Dubois try to hide in the apartment? Call Besson to help her? Or would she book it?

“Blood,” Dad said, interrupting his thoughts. Chuck saw him point at the ground. “I must have hit her. But probably just a grazing shot.”

But that still meant that Dubois was wounded. Bleeding. Would she try to bandage herself before escaping? He couldn’t see her on the camera feeds covering the hallways. 

Where was she? And what was she planning? Even if the wound wasn’t severe enough to require immediate treatment, a bleeding woman would attract attention. That would make escaping harder. So, she would be treating her wound first. And change her clothes. More than enough time to call Besson for help - or as a distraction. “What did she tell Besson?” he asked without taking his eyes off the switching camera feeds.

“She sent more codes,” Dad replied after a check on his - still working - laptop. “26540”

26540? What could that mean? If it as another date… 26th May? 1840? Or 1940? Chuck quickly ran the date through a search. 

Dunkirk. The evacuation started on that date.

“They’re pulling out,” he said. “Or she’s pulling out - is Besson staying put?” He checked. The bodyguard hadn’t left Gonzàlez’s apartment. And there was still no sign of Dubois. How did she plan to evacuate? Wait… Evacuate. She wouldn’t… He remembered her missions. Of course she would. “She’s going to force an evacuation of the whole building so she can get away in the confusion.”

“Are you sure?”

No, he wasn’t. It wasn’t the Intersect coming to this conclusion. But he nodded. “Yes. And she’s probably counting on Besson to use the confusion to get what they want, too.”

And the only thing that would force the evacuation of the entire building would be a fire. A huge fire. Well, a terrorist attack or mass shooting would do the same, but that would result in the police surrounding the building. Dubois wouldn’t want that. “It’ll be a fire,” he said.

Dad nodded. “I’ll inform Sarah and Casey.”

Right. Chuck should have done that long ago - but there hadn’t been any time. And the two spies would arrive too late anyway. It was up to Chuck and his father to stop Dubois and Besson. Great.

Should he block the alarm? No. Dubois would set the building on fire. She wouldn’t try to fake it. Chuck couldn’t suppress the alert - innocents would be endangered.

Should he call the police and report, anonymously, that an armed, possibly wounded female burglar had been spotted? No. The cops arriving loaded for bear and hunting for an armed criminal would make the whole mission much harder for Chuck, too. “As soon as the fire alarms are going off, we’ll know on which floor she’s hiding,” he said.

“Unless she’s setting fires on a delayed timer,” Dad pointed out.

Chuck shook his head, keeping his eyes focused on his phone’s screen. “That wouldn’t change anything - she can’t leave her current floor without us noticing. We’ve got eyes on the facade and the hallways. And there are no garbage chutes inside the apartments.”

“She could improvise a rope and rappel down the facade while we move to the affected floor.”

That was a crazy plan - but Dubois had done crazier things according to the files Chuck had read. He nodded. “In that case, we’ll follow her - get a rope and the harnesses from the bag. Just in case.”

Dad didn’t protest his plan, so Chuck concluded that the Intersect should be able to handle rappelling. That was standard spy stuff, anyway.

“Should we put them on already?” Dad asked, dropping the gear on the table.

“Uh…” Chuck blinked. “No, not yet. If we need to play the part of scared residents fleeing the fire, wearing harnesses would look strange.”

“Unless we flee through the window,” Dad pointed out with a grin.

Chuck rolled his eyes. His father knew what he had meant. “She still hasn’t moved. And neither has Besson. Of course, he has to act surprised when the fire alarm goes off...” He trailed off. “Oh my God! If Gonzàlez gets evacuated, Besson might be able to persuade him to skip town to avoid the investigation!” He looked at Dad. “That’s probably her plan. Forcing us to go after Gonzàlez so she can escape.”

“Are you sure?”

No, he wasn’t. But it fit. In the chaos of an evacuation, anything could happen - and a lot could be covered up. A CIA strike team would use the opportunity rather than having to abort the mission and to launch another later. “Either way, we can’t let Gonzàlez escape.” If the drug lord escaped and moved away, they’d have to find another suitable target. And had to erase all the planted evidence. And with Besson and Lopez with him, they couldn’t split and stop Dubois.

And, Chuck realised with a sinking feeling, it also meant that he would have to perform an assassination. Dad couldn’t do it alone. He shook his head. He had already been performing an assassination by performing his role on this mission. Whether he was personally shooting anyone didn’t make a difference. Nor morally. And not legally.

But it made a difference for him. Gonzàlez was a drug lord who had had dozens of people murdered - and killed at least a few personally. But he hadn’t done anything to Chuck or his family. He wasn’t a threat - he was a mark.

Could Chuck kill him? If the Intersect kicked in, easily, of course. But like this? Could he?

“Chuck?”

“What?” He jerked. “What?”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, sure.” Chuck nodded. “Just thinking of how we can get Gonzàlez,” he lied. “They’ll have to take the stairs.” If they had enough time to prepare, they could have rigged a gas trap - carbon monoxide filling the staircase, suffocating the entire group. But they would have had to isolate Gonzàlez’s group from everyone else. “We need to ambush them there.”

And that would be difficult. And dangerous.

Good. If the Intersect kicked in, Chuck wouldn’t feel too bad about the thing. 

“Let’s come at them from above,” he said. They might not expect that.

“Lopez might stall us, letting Gonzàlez escape,” Dad pointed out.

“Not if we stop them from going down further,” Chuck said.

“How? Do you want to split up?”

“No.” Chuck shook his head as he got up. “But we’ll have to. I’ll take the top.”

The fire alarm went off before he had reached the door.

Damn. So much for the plan. They’d have to improvise. He checked the video feeds again. Thick smoke was starting to fill the floor below them. Dubois had gone all-out - that kind of fire could threaten the entire building. “Uh…”

“Chuck?”

“I just realised,” he said, wincing, “this might not be a distraction to let her escape us, but a way to flush us out so she can kill us.”

“Right. Should we abort the mission?”

Chuck shook his head. “That would play into her hand if she’s expecting us to flee.” The cameras on the floor below them were quickly becoming useless as the smoke spread, but Chuck saw the first people appearing in the hallways - panicking. And obscured by the smoke. 

“Take the left stairway. I’ll take the right one,” he snapped, fitting the headset on and grabbing his bathrobe. It would hide his weapons and people might think that the fire had surprised him in bed - Morgan had used that plan in a D&D session, once.

Chuck was the first out of the door and almost ran into a neighbour he hadn’t yet met. “Sorry!” he yelled. “But there’s a fire!”

“Where? Where?” the old man shouted.

“Run down the stairs!” Chuck yelled back. “Don’t use the elevator!” He blinked as the old man ran past him. The elevator. The fire alarm would have sent it down so panicked residents wouldn’t get trapped in it. And the stairs would be - were, he caught a glimpse before the door fell closed behind the fleeing man - filling with fleeing people.

But the elevator shaft would be empty. And accessible. If you were crazy enough to climb up while the building was burning. And Dubois was the kind of spy crazy enough to do exactly that. The smart thing would be to use the confusion and panic to escape through the stairs, using the other residents as human shields. That would be smart - and expected.

But Chuck was sure that Dubois hadn’t survived her suicidal missions by being predictable. And while it was hard to make out individuals, someone going up through the stairs while everyone else was rushing down would stand out.

“She’s coming up through the elevator shaft!” he told Dad through the radio as he approached the elevator doors.

“Gonzàlez hasn’t shown up yet,” Dad replied. “But Besson is in the hallway.”

Stalling? Perhaps. But Dubois was a bigger problem - she might be coming after Chuck and his father. She was, after all, an assassin trained for this. And they were interfering in her plans.

He reached the elevator and checked the small gap in the centre. Smoke was coming through it. More than expected - Dubois must have forced the door open on the floor below. That meant she was climbing up - but she had to hurry. “Has Dubois texted Besson again?”

“No.” Dad arrived behind him. He was pulling on one of their gas masks. Chuck followed his example - it would help with the smoke, at least.

Was Dubois sacrificing Besson? Or did she have plans laid out in advance covering this? Chuck didn’t know. And time was running out. “Let’s get this open!” he said.

“But all the smoke will fill this floor!” Dad protested.

“We can’t stay any longer anyway.” Chuck pulled out the tool Casey had given him and inserted it into the concealed opening in the doors, then pulled, hard - and almost fell on his back as the doors put up no resistance.

It saved his life, though, as two bullets missed him by inches as he stumbled back - Dubois had been waiting for them!

Smoke billowed out of the shaft - less than what Chuck had expected - and Dad returned fire - but as he was moving to cover, Chuck didn’t think he’d hit Dubois.

“Missed her,” Dad confirmed Chuck’s guess a moment later. “She’s above us.”

Damn. How could they get her without exposing themselves to fire?

“Gonzàlez is moving! Left stairs.”

Double-damn. And the smoke was getting worse. How much longer until the fire brigade would arrive? Wait… He had an idea. He could…

Something flew through the open doors. Small, round… “Grenade!” Chuck yelled, gasping - they were dead. It was too close and the hallway too narrow. Gritting his teeth, he jumped towards it. At least Dad would survive.

He collided with another body on the way - from the side - and they went down in a tangle of limbs. Dubois! His gun went flying - knocked out of his hand. And she still had hers.

Chuck managed to grab her arm, forcing the muzzle of her gun away from him as she fired several shots before she dropped it. He tried to follow up with an arm lock, but she ripped his mask off, and the sudden inhalation of smoke made him cough so hard, he lost his grip on her.

She twisted away, and a kick landed on his shoulder instead of his face as he lunged forward to grapple her. She was on her back but countered with a capoeira move that barely failed to crush his throat. In return, he grabbed her leg, then had to drop it to avoid her next kick.

He rolled and twisted his body, turning the movement into a leg sweep that caught her right when she moved towards him. She lost her balance but recovered enough to avoid his chop to her throat, crashing into his chest and trapping one of his arms beneath her body.

Chuck lashed out with his free arm against her head, making her jerk back and to the side. That dislodged her enough to let him roll - and fling her away. Towards the open elevator doors. He saw her eyes widen and her arms flailing - and her hand latching onto the mask still dangling from his neck at the moment she went through the opening.

Chuck almost followed her but managed to brace himself against the door with both arms. That left Dubois hanging from his gas mask. For a moment, their eyes met. Braced like this, he couldn’t defend himself - and the straps were already cutting into his neck. But if she took him out, she’d fall down.

Then a hand pushed his shoulder down, and a pistol appeared next to his head, pointing at Dubois. Dad!

And Dubois, still staring into his eyes, let go and fell, disappearing in the smoke below.

Chuck stared down the shaft, but couldn’t see through the smoke. She hadn’t been wearing a line or even a harness. From this height… He hadn’t killed her, but he might as well have - he certainly had tried his best. But to suicide...

“Come on! We need to catch Gonzàlez!” Dad pulled him back.

Right. He stood, shaking his head and pulling his mask back on.

“They’re a floor below us, now,” Dad told him.

Chuck glanced at the shaft. If they ran after them on the stairs, they wouldn’t be quick enough to stop them. “You take the stairs, I’ll rappel down here.”

After a moment’s hesitation, his father nodded. “Be careful.”

“You too.” Chuck did his best to smile confidently even though the mask hid his face. Then he picked up the submachine gun - and Dubois’s pistol - before pulling out the rope. “Third floor,” he told Dad. “I’ll stop them there.”

“I’ll be right behind them.” Dad vanished around the corner.

Chuck quickly tied the rope to pipe inside the shaft - the smoke was getting really bad - then jumped off, rappelling down as quickly as he safely could manage. Which was a good thing, since he saw and felt flames through the open door of the floor below. Dubois obviously knew how to set fire to a building and make it spread. Even going past the door in close to a free fall, Chuck felt uncomfortably hot.

That also meant that his line wouldn’t last too long - not with that heat. He clenched his teeth and sped up his descent even more until his shoulders and thighs hurt from the way the harness cut into them.

At least the smoke wasn’t too bad once he was past the burning floor, and he reached the third floor easily. Now he just had to open the door… His hand found an empty pocket where the tool to open it should have been. He must have lost it during the fight without noticing!

And the flames would soon reach his rope… He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and pulled his knife. Sometimes, violence was the answer. He wedged it into the gap, then started to force the doors open.

It was much harder than he had expected - he had to brace himself against the corner and kick with all his strength to force the doors open. But he did it - and in time to catch Gonzàlez, if he sprinted. He moved to climb out when he felt a tug on his harness that almost made him lose his balance. A quick glance confirmed it - the rope had fallen - it must have burned through. Damn, that had been close. If he had been a little slower... 

He climbed into the hallway and started to run towards the stairs. The whole building would be doomed if the fire brigade didn’t arrive soon. How had Dubois managed that? No time to dwell on that. At least there were no panicking residents left here, or so it seemed.

He ran around the corner - and saw Besson standing in the open door to the stairs there, with his pistol aimed at him. Chuck dropped and slid along the floor, Bessons’ shot passing over his head as his own burst hit the bodyguard in the shoulder right before he ducked behind the wall.

“Ambush!” he heard the man yell - so he wasn’t seriously hurt, if at all, Chuck assumed as he slid forward, then rolled to the side and came up in a crouch, submachine gun still pointed at the door. He had stopped them from descending further - for now.

“Dad?”

“I’m a floor above. We’ve got them!” Dad replied.

Chuck heard several shots, and Dad cursed. “Dad?”

“I’m unhurt - but I had to retreat a little.”

That was bad. The fire brigade and the cops would arrive any minute. And that would bust the mission. Think, Chuck, think. Fake grenade? Copy Dubois? But he didn’t have a fake grenade. Perhaps he could… He saw the red metal door to his side. Oh.

He ripped it open and pulled the hose out. Perfect. “I’m going to flush them out, Dad.”

“Flush them out?”

More shots. They must be trying to break through to the fourth floor instead of going past Chuck.

“Literally,” Chuck whispered, turning the water on. He could feel the hose grow heavy and buck as the water filled it, the end still closed. He moved forward, hugging the wall, one hand keeping his gun pointed at the door, the other holding the hose. Time was running out.

Something moved in the door, and he fired before he recognised it - a gun. Besson’s gun. But the bodyguard only squeezed off two shots, firing blind, before he retreated again. And Chuck was at the corner.

He took a deep breath and regretted it at once - the air was getting steadily worse, too - and opened the valve at the end. Water shot out at high pressure, and Chuck struggled to keep it under control as he pointed it around the corner with both hands. 

Someone yelled, and Chuck heard more shots. He flinched, but he was committed. Besson was on the ground, knocked back by the water, Gonzàlez cowered on the stairs, but behind the man, Lopez was turning around. Chuck hit her with the water, driving her back and spoiling her aim, then had to spray Besson again before the bodyguard could shoot him. What was Dad doing? He couldn’t keep this up forever - and he couldn’t get his gun while he was holding on to the hose with all his strength!

He ducked as Lopez started firing and gave her another faceful of water, pushing forward. Besson was getting up, but Chuck was close enough to kick him, before hosing him down again. And Gonzàlez…

Chuck dropped to the wet floor as the drug lord shot at him. The bullet missed him, but he lost his grip on the hose. It promptly started to dance around in the staircase, spraying water everywhere. At least it made Gonzàlez back up and Lopez duck, saving Chuck’s life once more.

But before he could get up, Besson kicked him in the side. Chuck yelled at the pain - his ribs were broken - but managed to grab the bodyguard’s leg before he could recover, and twist the foot. The mercenary wasn’t quick enough to compensate, and his scream drowned out the crack his ankle made when Chuck broke it.

The hose flew over his head as he rushed forward, lashing out at Besson’s head. The bodyguard twisted away, but not enough, and a glancing blow knocked his head back, into the stairs, stunning him.

Chuck got up himself - two enemies left, and Gonmzàlez was popping up from where he had ducked under the spinning hose. Chuck lunged, but the pain that move caused in his ribs made him stumble, and the drug lord brought his pistol to bear at a distance he couldn’t…

Something smashed into Gonzàlez and threw him against the wall. Dad had managed to tackle Lopez! Chuck moved, clenching his teeth at the pain, and kicked Gonzàlez in the face. The drug lord dropped with a groan. That left Lopez, who was grappling with Dad.

Chuck steadied himself with a hand on the railing and kicked out. His first strike missed, his second glanced off the woman’s shoulder, but his third hit the back of her head, knocking her out.

Panting - and coughing; he had lost his mask again in the fight - he managed to ask: “Dad? Are you alright?”

Groaning, his father rolled off Lopez. “She got me in the side, but I’ll live - I think.”

“Dad!” Chuck knelt down, hissing at his own pain, and reached for his father. He had to treat his wounds!

“No! We have to finish the job, Chuck,” Dad spat. “The cops are arriving.”

Finish the job? Oh. He meant, killing Gonzàlez. And the others. Who were all knocked out and helpless on the ground. Uh.

“Just help me up,” Dad said.

“Sure,” Chuck replied, grabbing his arm. No! Dad’s entire side was bloody!

“It’s OK,” his father mumbled. He was swaying on his feet, too - blood loss must be bad!

“Dad!”

“I’ll be alright. It’s not a deep wound.” Dad took a few steps, almost stumbling if not for Chuck’s help, then aimed at the groaning Gonzàlez. With Lopez’s gun, Chuck realised.

Dad fired a single bullet into the drug lord’s head. Lopez’s style. Chuck gasped. He should have expected that - he had been expecting it - but to see his father killing a man in cold blood…

Another shot. Two men, Chuck corrected himself.

“Can you carry her?” his father asked, nodding at Lopez. “Need to tie her up, though.”

“I can’t carry her and you at the same time,” Chuck replied. And how were they going to get the woman out of the building, with the police and firemen outside?

“Right.”

Another shot rang out and that problem became moot.

Chuck shook his head. He had to focus on the mission - on their escape. “Let’s go. We’ll need to reach the garage - we can get the car.”

“Yes.”

Chuck still checked Dad’s wound first. It really wasn’t deep, but it had to hurt a lot and needed to be bandaged. And his own ribs were hurting like hell, but probably bruised rather than broken. Probably. He couldn’t have fought like he did with broken ribs, could he?

He laughed, then winced at the pain it caused, as he helped Dad down the stairs. They had to go down four floors before the firemen entered. And before the fire caught up to them from above. And he didn’t know how long either would take. It all came down to luck.

“Chuck? Where are you?”

That was Sarah! “Sarah?”

“Where are you? You didn’t answer your phone!”

“Oh.” He looked down. He must have lost the phone as well without noticing.

“Northern staircase, second floor - we need help. Took out the mark,” he said. “But we’re wounded.” Did he qualify? Bruises didn’t count, did they?

“We’re coming. Stay inside; don’t get out.”

“No danger of that,” he replied, chuckling, then wincing. He really should remember not to laugh with broken or bruised ribs.

Sarah and Casey - in disguise - met them on the first floor. The NSA agent all but ripped Dad out of Chuck’s arms and dragged him away at a speed Chuck had trouble matching. 

“Chuck!”

He smiled at Sarah. “Just bruises. I think.” He pointed at his ribs. “But Dad was shot.”

“Nothing serious.”

“His wound needs bandaging,” Chuck insisted.

“We’ve brought an ambulance.”

Chuck blinked. “An ambulance.” Oh, a fake, of course. The ideal getaway vehicle for the situation. Or for a kidnapping - they had used it before. He nodded.

“Chuck? Where were you hurt?”

He blinked. Just the side.

“Are you sure? You weren’t hit in the head?”

He blinked again. Had he been hit in the head? Not that he’d have noticed. But he did feel a little… Had he a concussion?

By the time they reached the ambulance and Chuck climbed inside, Casey had secured Dad on the gurney and was throwing on a paramedic jacket. “Get a move on!”

They sped out of the garage. Casey yelled at a cop stopping them that this was an emergency - heart attack - and then they were driving away, and Sarah was treating Dad’s wound.

Chuck looked out of the window at the brightly burning building. From the sixth floor up, everything was in flames, or so it seemed. Chuck didn’t think the firemen would be able to save it.

“Just for the record,” he said, then blinked. There wouldn’t be any records, anyway. “Just for the record,” he repeated, “I didn’t start the fire.”

But he wished he knew how Dubois had managed that kind of blaze. That could be very useful when dealing with demons. But the woman was dead. As were Gonzélez, Lopez and Besson.

He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it all.

*****


	32. The Fallout Part 1

**California, Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, February 7th, 2008**

“Ow!” Chuck hissed - that hurt. A lot. He shifted a little on the couch - it wasn’t the most comfortable, but when it came to safe houses, like this one that the others had prepared, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“They’re not broken, as far as I can tell without an X-ray,” Sarah said.

An X-ray would have hurt much less than her poking and prodding his ribs. “Perhaps we should get an X-Ray. Just in case.”

“Oh, we will,” she told him. “It’s needed for your cover story.”

“Cover story?” He blinked.

“To explain your injury,” she said. “You won’t be able to hide it at work.”

“Ah.” That made sense. To imagine working with bruised or broken ribs… He shuddered, then winced at the pain that caused. “Uh, what is the cover story?”

“You slipped in the bath after taking your medication.”

“Uh…” That made him look like a klutz. Or an idiot.

She shook her head, though she was smiling. “It’s a simple and very plausible explanation.”

“Very plausible?” He wasn’t a klutz - and he had never injured himself like this.

“It happens to a lot of people,” she replied. “And it won’t draw attention like a more heroic cover story would.”

“What about a sports accident?” That was less humiliating.

“That’s harder to set up, and people might expect witnesses. An accident at home is private.”

He sighed. It really made sense, but he still didn’t like it. Before he could say anything else, though, he felt her hand on his cheek.

“Chuck. You were very lucky to only suffer bruised ribs today.”

Uh-oh. He drew a hissing breath through suddenly clenched teeth and grimaced. “I’m sorry. But you and Casey were in Burbank, and Dubois broke into our apartment, and, well… things kind of went out of control afterwards.”

“You and your father went after a drug lord, a mercenary, a cartel hitwoman, and an assassin.”

The way she said it made it sound worse than it had been. “Uh… we couldn’t let the mission fail.”

“Why not?”

He blinked. “What?”

Sarah was staring at him with a serious expression. “Why didn’t you abort the mission? You could have retreated after Dubois fled.”

“Uh… we thought she might be waiting to ambush us in the confusion of the evacuation.” He knew it was a weak argument and, seeing her frown, he sighed again. “I thought about aborting, but… It never really was an option before. At the graduation in Sunnydale, we knew we’d all die if we failed. And in Los Angeles, with Wolfram and Hart, we knew we had to beat them to save the city. And the world.” Chuck shrugged. “The mission takes priority, or something?”

“There are missions like that, but this wasn’t one of them. We could have restarted it. Picked another target.”

That would have meant months wasted, though. But she was correct. “Sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I didn’t really think. I just…” He shrugged again as he trailed off. “I didn’t think.”

“You were focused on the mission,” she said.

He nodded. “Yes.” Like a real spy.

“Not all missions are important enough to take such risks.”

“Yes.” He knew that. He just hadn’t thought of it.

“You were hurt, and your father was shot.”

And both of them could’ve been killed. Several times. “Yes, I know. Believe me, every breath I take reminds me of it,” he replied. He turned his head, pulling away from her hand, and looked at the door to the bathroom to emphasise his point. There, Dad was getting treated by Casey.

Sarah flinched and leaned back. “Good.”

It wasn’t. But Chuck couldn’t stand getting his mistakes thrown into his face right now. Not when his side was hurting, and his father was bleeding.

His father, who had shot three people in cold blood. Three helpless people. Damn. Chuck hadn’t expected that. He should have, of course - they had planned for it. But to see it happen. See _Dad_ calmly execute them… It could’ve been the Intersect, of course. Chuck knew how few qualms he had when he was fighting under its influence - he had tried to throw Dubois down the elevator shaft, after all. And Dad’s early-version of the Intersect might not fade as quickly as Chuck’s if the danger was gone.

But he didn’t really believe it. No matter how much he tried.

Dad had killed three people. Four, if you count Dubois suiciding before he could shoot her. And Chuck had helped him.

And he didn’t know how he felt about that.

He still felt relief when Casey entered the bedroom and growled something about Dad being fine. “Thank God,” he mumbled.

Casey snorted. “Yeah, you two were lucky as hell.”

That didn’t quite make sense, but this wasn’t the time to try to improve Casey’s speech.

“It was a calculated risk,” Dad said, following Casey. He was moving a little gingerly, Chuck noticed, and he was pale, but otherwise, he looked OK.

The NSA agent scoffed and shook his head. “Intersect or not, you had no business attacking Gonzàlez.”

Dad half-shrugged, flinching a little. “It worked out.”

“That remains to be seen,” Sarah said. She turned, picked up the remote and unmuted the television running in the background.

Chuck sighed and closed his eyes for a moment when he saw the pictures of a burning building behind the newscaster.

“...and the fire department has stopped attempting to save the building and are now focusing on ensuring that the fire isn’t spreading to neighbouring buildings. According to their speaker, the residents have been evacuated, although several of them are still not accounted for. However, many of them were at work when the fire started this afternoon.”

“That wasn’t our fault,” Chuck pointed out. “We didn’t suppress the alarm or hindered the fire department’s response.” At least it didn’t look like civilians had died in the fire.

“Shhh,” Casey hissed as the newscaster switched to a reporter on-site and a pretty woman appeared in front of the burning building.

“This is Jenny Kruger on location. As you can see, a crowd has gathered to watch as the firefighters have given up saving the building. The police are in the process of pushing the crowd back so the imminent collapse of the building won’t claim more lives.” She took a deep breath. “The police haven’t released a statement yet, but there are reports that not only is the fire suspected of having been deliberately started, but that several bodies have been found and recovered that were not killed by the fire, but with guns.”

“Thank you, Jenny,” the newscaster said, nodding at her before turning to address the audience again. “A spokesman of the LAPD declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation. However, it’s not quite clear how they plan to investigate while the fire is still raging. In other news…”

Sarah muted the TV again.

“They found and recovered Gonzàlez and the others,” Chuck said.

“Of course they did - they were left practically at the entrance,” Casey said, scoffing again. “Let’s hope the fire at least messed up the site so much, they can’t reconstruct what happened.”

“We used Dubois’s gun on them. Once they find her body and the gun at the bottom of the shaft, it should be easy to draw the conclusion that she killed them, then fell to her death trying to escape,” Dad said.

“Provided the fire leaves enough to be identified,” Sarah pointed out. “If the entire building collapses, that might be difficult. And the records for the cameras will be destroyed by the fire as well.”

“They’ll still have her car,” Chuck said. “And once Fankhauser wakes up, he’ll report her missing.”

He didn’t like the slight pause before Casey replied: “That’ll take a while. But the real question isn’t what the LAPD will find, but what the CIA and the French will think.”

Right. “And what will they think?”

“That depends on whether or not they talk to each other and compare notes,” Casey said. “If we had been able to frame Lopez, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

“The French will claim Dubois had gone rogue - as their files already claim. But the CIA might not believe them,” Sarah said.

“Classic cover story,” Casey growled.

“So, if the CIA suspects that the French were after Chuck and using Gonzàlez as a middleman and fall guy…” Sarah trailed off.

Chuck winced. Had they just inadvertently created an international incident? “That would be bad.”

“It’d help our cover-up by confusing the entire issue,” Dad said. “With all the witnesses dead, there aren’t any leads to us.”

Casey grunted. “They’ll look for the Blacks.”

“And they’ll find the backstory I created - leading to Mexico,” Dad retorted. “The disguises will hold.”

He sounded confident. Chuck wanted to believe him. But he couldn’t help thinking that they were a little too optimistic.

“Like they fooled Dubois?” Casey asked.

Oh. Chuck shook his head. “She actually didn’t see through our cover,” he told the NSA agent. “If she had suspected us of being spies, she wouldn’t have broken into our apartment like she did.”

“Yes,” Dad agreed. “She was surprised. I think that, with Fankhauser in a coma, she needed another investment banker, and probably planned to make Chuck do it since he was already acquainted with Gonzàlez.”

Chuck blinked, then stared at the muted TV screen, where the apartment building collapsed in a cloud of smoke and ash. 

Did that mean that his plan to find out what Dubois had been planning had, ultimately, started all of this? He had meant to avoid killing innocents!

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 7th, 2008**

Sarah glanced at Chuck as she took the last turn to enter their street. He hadn’t said anything on the drive back to their home. “You’re unusually quiet,” she commented as she parked the car.

He looked startled. “I am? Really?” He grimaced. “I’m a little tired, I guess. And my ribs are hurting.”

Both were true, but she knew him. “It’s more than that, though,” she said, cutting the engine.

“Uh…” He unbuckled but didn’t make a move to leave the car.

“Chuck.” She took a deep breath and put her hand on his tight. He was even tenser than she had expected. “What happened?”

“Uh… you know what happened. We messed up and were almost killed.” He shifted in his seat. “I’m sorry.”

He hadn’t been like that after other missions where it had been close. “What’s really eating you?”

He held her gaze for a moment, his expression growing more and more forced, before he closed his eyes and sighed, slumping in his seat. “Dad.”

She blinked. What did he…? Ah. “You saw him kill three people in cold blood.”

“Uh… yes.”

And he didn’t know how to handle ‘Dad’ being a murderer. She’d have to tread carefully here. “The plan included killing Gonzàlez from the start.” He couldn’t have been left alive if he was to be framed for Orion’s hacking and money transfer.

“Yes.” Chuck drew a hissing breath through clenched teeth, she noticed. “I know that!” He shook his head. “It’s just…” He wet his lips. “It was…” He shook his head again.

“You didn’t expect to see it happen. And you didn’t expect your father to do it.”

Once more, he slumped over. “No, I didn’t. I know it’s stupid, but… I thought Casey would do the deed, so to speak.”

“Or it would happen in a firefight,” she stated.

“Yes. It’s different when they are trying to kill you.” He nodded emphatically with a weak grin.

“Like Dubois.”

“That was a suicide,” he replied. “But, yes, if I had managed to throw her down the shaft before she ended up dangling from my gas mask’s straps, it would’ve been… well, OK?”

“Not all the people I killed on missions were trying to kill me,” she said, looking straight at him - the light from the house was just bright enough to let her see his face.

He stiffened for a moment before he nodded. “I know. That’s my other problem.”

It was? She felt as if her stomach dropped. Had he found that he couldn’t handle her past? “Chuck…”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure if I can handle doing it, you know.”

“The killing?” He hadn’t had a problem so far. And he had seen her file, hadn’t he? He knew what she had done - well, part of what she had done.

“I know spies have to kill people in the line of duty. And I want to be a real spy. But I’m not sure I can handle killing... helpless prisoners. I mean, I hoped the Intersect would take over, but it didn’t.”

She almost smiled widely, relief filling her. He didn’t have a problem with her past. But she couldn’t show that. Instead, she slowly nodded. “Chuck - no one’s expecting you to execute people.”

“But I want to be a real spy, not just… the guy with the Intersect! I want to be a full member of our team!” he blurted out.

Ah. “Chuck, you are a full member of the team.” Actually, it was more his team than hers - or Casey’s. Or would be, once they joined the Council. “Not every spy is an assassin. Or expected to execute prisoners.”

“But you and Casey…” He trailed off, and she noticed he was biting his lower lip.

“Casey’s a sniper. Killing people in cold blood is what he does,” she replied. “I’ve killed people, but I wasn’t sent out as an assassin.” Not that the difference in some missions she had done would have been significant.

“Oh.” He slowly nodded and started to smile. “I see.”

She squeezed his thigh. “You’re already a good spy, Chuck. And it’s a good thing that you don’t like killing people in cold blood. People who do are usually...”

“Like Casey?”

She nodded. But right when she was about to leave the car and enter their home, he sighed again. “But what about Dad?”

That was a good question. Sarah would love to know the answer. Just how far was Orion willing to go? And what kind of man was he? Or had become during his time in hiding? “I think you need to talk to him about this. Find out how he’s handling the whole thing. He might have trouble with it, too.” She doubted it, though.

“Oh. I didn’t even think about that.” He smiled at her. “Thank you. I almost…” He shook his head.

She nodded. “Let’s go to bed now.”

“Right.”

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 8th, 2008**

Chuck felt better when he woke up. Not physically - his ribs hurt something fierce; worse than after Larry had tackled him during P.E. in seventh grade. But Sarah had told him he was a good spy. Even though he had trouble with assassinations.

Although… he knew Watchers sometimes had to execute people. Evil mages and other practitioners of magic. People who willingly worked with or for demons. Evil demons, of course. Morgan had told him about it - Slayers shouldn’t kill humans if it could be helped. Or something like it. So, it fell to their Watchers to… do the deed.

Chuck closed his eyes. Damn, he couldn’t even call a murder a murder in his thoughts! Was that pathetic, or not?

Casey would say yes, it was. While sneering at him. But Casey was Casey. Chuck wasn’t Casey. And he didn’t want to be Casey. Didn’t want to be like Casey. The man wasn’t happy, anyone could see that. And Casey would probably want to do any executions anyway.

Chuck sighed. That was a petty thought. And wrong, too - or so he hoped.

He still didn’t want to be like Casey.

“Morning.”

Oh. He turned his head so he wasn’t watching the ceiling any more and looked at Sarah. She was lying on her side, head propped up by one hand. And smiling at him. “Morning!” he said, as brightly as he managed.

“You seemed… a little down. Your ribs giving you trouble?”

“Uh… A little.” He didn’t want to lie. But he also didn’t want to tell her that he still was trying to deal with yesterday’s mission. “I just remembered that we never found out what Dubois and Besson were after.”

“Ah.” She nodded, in apparent understanding. “Yes, that is annoying.” He couldn’t tell if he had fooled her, but she wouldn’t push the issue. “But it’s something every spy has to deal with,” she continued. “We rarely get the full picture.”

“Isn’t that kind of a paradox?” His neck was starting to strain. He wanted to lie on his side and face her, but his ribs wouldn’t allow that. “I mean, you train spies to ferret as much intel as they can - and at the same time, you keep them in the dark as much as you can, right?”

She laughed at that. “It’s one way to see it, I guess. But it’s mostly a good policy - field agents are at risk of being captured on every mission, so everything they know is at significant risk of being discovered.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “That makes sense - in a warped way, mind you. Aren’t the best spies those who want to find out every secret?”

“Only until they are caught. Then they turn into the worst spies,” Sarah told him.

“Ah.” Chuck wasn’t sure how the Scoobies operated, but he didn’t think that Willow was a fan of ‘need to know’. Unless one accepted that she needed to know everything. Then again, Willow wasn’t a spy - or easy to capture. “Isn’t that what suicide pills are for?”

“Those are extreme cases,” she replied.

If he had to choose between getting captured by demons or killing himself… He shook his head. “It’s quite a morbid way to start a day.”

“You started it,” she retorted with a grin.

“Hey! You asked for it!” he told her, forcing himself to grin as well. It wasn’t really funny - it was dead serious, literally - but he didn’t like dwelling on the subject, so he went along with her attempt to lighten the mood. “So… I guess I should get ready to be ribbed?”

She tilted her head. “I think so. Unless you want to be late for work.”

“You know, they’ll start a rumour that we did something kinky in bed that went wrong,” he told her.

Her grin didn’t waver. “That’s a good cover story and explains why we don’t want to go into details.”

He didn’t have a comeback for that. Not so early in the morning.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, February 8th, 2008**

“Hey, Chuck! How’re your ribs?”

“Hey, Chuck! Heard you had an accident. What happened?”

“Chuck! Should you be working?”

The Buy More rumour mill was working as efficiently as usual, Chuck noticed when he entered the store and was immediately accosted by various staff members barely managing to hide their curiosity behind mostly-faked concern. “I’m fine, guys,” he told them, forcing himself to smile instead of glaring, “I just slipped in the kitchen and fell on a chair. It only hurts when I laugh.”

“Oh, slipped? In the kitchen?” The tone and grin of Lester told Chuck just what the man was thinking. As did Jeff’s wide grin.

And there was the source of all of this.

“Hi, Chuck!”

“Hi, Morgan.” Chuck didn’t bother to hide his annoyance and glanced at Jeff and Lester to make his point even more apparent.

They quickly found somewhere else to be. Morgan, though, leaned closer and lowered his voice. “So I heard you ran into some trouble. Are you alright?”

“Just bruised ribs,” Chuck replied. “And everyone thinks I got the injury during sex.” He glared at Morgan, who, unfortunately, remained unfazed.

“Oh, yeah,” Morgan replied. “That’s probably my fault.”

“Really.” Chuck raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I mean… People were asking about your malady when you didn’t come to work, and we started speculating. You know, talking shit. So, I joked that you were worn out by Sarah.” Morgan’s smile turned more than a little forced. “And they, kind of, well… ran with it.”

“Ran a marathon, it seems,” Chuck said in a flat voice. His friend should have expected that.

“Well, you getting hurt kind of… fueled the fires?”

He was acting a little too apologetic for such a mistake. “And what did you do?”

“Well… I only mentioned that certain positions were dangerous - but that was related to Kirsten and my relationship. But they…”

“...ran with that as well.” Well, he had expected that when he had first heard of the cover story. But to be proven right like this… Chuck would’ve liked to be wrong in this case. He sighed. “Speaking of her, what does she think happened?”

“Uh… I don’t know. I told her you had an accident, and then told her a few tales from high school to show it wasn’t really implausible,” Morgan said. “Like the time Larry broke your ribs in that tackle. Or the time you got the soccer ball to the face. Or when you fell down the stairs in the panic after the cop shot at Buffy.”

“Right.” Chuck could’ve done without the reminder just how dangerous his high school life had been. Or how unlucky he had been. “And did she believe it?”

“Well, it’s the truth.” Morgan shrugged. “But I don’t know what she suspects. We kind of… avoid the topic, usually, when we’re together.”

Was that a good sign, or a bad sign? Was Bane trying to avoid bringing in spy business into their relationship, or was she being subtle and luring Morgan into a false sense of trust? Or something else?

And what would Dad do if he thought that Bane suspected the truth? Chuck pressed his lips together. They already knew that Bane was sent here as much to spy on them as to support them. But had the woman changed? Or was she just putting up an act?

“Chuck? Are you alright?”

Morgan was staring at him, concern written over his face. Chuck slowly nodded. “I’ll heal.” He looked around. Casey was refilling shelves and glaring at a customer trying to ask for assistance. He didn’t want to talk about this where Casey could overhear. The agent was too prone to solve all problems with violence.

“Ah.” Morgan followed his glance. “Gotcha.” In a lower voice, he added: “Well, at least Caridad and Vi are busy tracking down some demon cabal. Otherwise, they’d tease you. Probably.”

Chuck simply nodded. He had already too much to worry about to get involved in demon hunting.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 8th, 2008**

He had checked if her car was in the driveway before going over to Ellie and Devon’s apartment. He knew her schedule, but sometimes, she was called to work if there was an emergency. Or someone got sick, and she had to fill in at the hospital. But she was at home, Devon wasn’t, and Sarah was busy at The Castle. It was the perfect time to talk to Ellie.

“Hi, Sis!” Chuck greeted her with a smile and a wave and barely winced when that resulted in some pain in his side.

“Hi, Chuck!” Ellie smiled at him, but then added: “What’s that I hear about an accident in the kitchen?”

“Ah…” He cleared his throat, then grimaced. Bruised ribs were really a pain in the… well, ribs. “It’s a cover story.”

“Like your claim of being sick?” She put the plate she had taken out of the dishwasher down and turned to fully face him, head slightly cocked.

“Well… yes. Only,” he added when he saw her beginning to frown, “I did hurt my ribs. Just bruises.”

Her frown became more pronounced at hearing that, and she looked at his side. “Let me see that.”

“It’s been checked,” he said, but she was already walking towards him. Sighing, he pulled his shirt up.

She prodded and poked his side, ignoring his groans, grunts and hisses, for a while before she finally withdrew and nodded. “Bruises.”

“I told you that.” He wasn’t pouting. Not really. But he was reminded of their childhood - Ellie had never been shy of using a lot of stinging disinfectants to treat his scrapes, no matter how much it hurt. Something about learning a lesson.

“You told me you were fine before even though you weren’t.”

“That was in school!” he protested. “Ten years ago!”

She ignored that. “How did it happen?”

“Well… I was in a fight.” He shrugged. “I got kicked.”

“Chuck…” And her lips opened a little, showing her teeth.

“Ellie, I didn’t come over to tell you a blow-by-blow account of how I fought a spy,” he told her. “I came over to talk to you about Dad.”

“Ah.” She straightened, took a step back and leaned against the counter with her arms crossed.

“He got shot - just a flesh wound,” Chuck added when he saw her eyes widening. “He’ll be OK. perfectly fine.”

“Ah.” And the concern vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“But, you know, he might be able to come back in from the cold, soon-ish,” he went on.

“And you got hurt arranging this?”

He grimaced, then nodded. Of course, she’d connect the dots.

“And he sent you to sound me out.”

“Yes? It’s not as if he can visit us in person until things have been settled.” They still had to link the money sent to Ellie to Gonzàlez, after all, to fool the CIA.

“But he can get shot on secret missions.” She shook her head. “With _you_.”

“All so he can return to us,” Chuck pointed out.

“Over a decade late.”

“That wasn’t his fault,” Chuck said. “Not entirely, at least.” He held up his hand when Ellie opened her mouth. “Look, he has made mistakes - and big ones. But he had reasons for it - he wanted to protect us.”

“By abandoning us on a Hellmouth.”

“He didn’t know that!” Chuck shook his head. “Look, he is really sorry.”

“So sorry, he’s sending you to apologise for him?” she said with a snort.

“Well, he can’t really show up here, what with the CIA hunting him,” Chuck repeated himself.

“But he can meet with you and go on missions. Spy missions.”

“Uh…” That was a good point, actually. “I can arrange a secret meeting, I think,” he said. “I’ll need to run that past the others.”

“You do that. I want to talk to him in person.” She dismissed him with a nod that reminded him strongly of the general’s.

*****

“I’m back,” Sarah announced as she closed the door behind her. “Everything’s alright at The Castle. How did your talk with Ellie go?” she asked, though as soon as she saw him on the couch in the living room, staring at a paused video game on the TV screen, she had her answer. “She’s not happy.”

“No, she isn’t,” he confirmed, shaking his head with a sigh. “And she wants to personally meet him. Soon. So… Can that be arranged without endangering our mission? Or missions?” 

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” she replied as she sat down next to him. Arranging a secret meeting in a city like Los Angeles? With their resources? Child’s play.

“Thought so. The meeting will be a problem, though.”

She inclined her head in agreement. A problem for which Orion was responsible, in her opinion. “Is there anything we can do about that?” She hoped he wouldn’t say yes - nothing good come of getting involved in that family row.

“Well…” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. She was pretty clear that she wanted to talk to Dad. Probably more like yell at him.”

Sarah nodded. That would have to be taken into account when picking the site for the meeting. “What about your talk with him?” 

“Uh…” He smiled in a rather forced and very unconvincing way at her.

It was her turn to sigh. Chuck couldn’t let that problem fester. “You have to talk this out.”

“But… before or after Ellie rips into him?”

“Before,” she told him. If Chuck couldn’t live with his father being a killer, then waiting for Ellie to forgive Orion would become somewhat moot.

He gritted his teeth - she could tell. “Yes, yes. I’ll try to meet up with him soon.”

“Please do,” she replied with a nod. Chuck had a chance to work this out - unlike herself - and he deserved it.

And Sarah really needed to know if they had another crook in the family that couldn’t be trusted.

She blinked. When had she started to think of the Bartowskis as family?

*****

An hour later, when she was laying in their bed, on her back and looking at the ceiling, she still hadn’t found an answer. It had happened before she had realised it. Not that that mattered much, anyway. What mattered was that it had happened.

She thought of Chuck’s family as family. As her in-laws. And wasn’t that a little unsettling? In-laws meant marriage, and until Ellie’s wedding preparations had started to involve her, Sarah hadn’t seriously contemplated marriage very often. Not since she had realised what her father did for a living, and what that meant for her life.

She sighed. She hadn’t really minded, back then. Sarah had been too young, too stupid and trusting, to realise that Dad’s life wasn’t all thrilling cons with fat payouts. And by the time she had realised in what kind of dead-end life she had been steered, it had been too late. If the director hadn’t been there…

She closed her eyes and suppressed the pang of pain she felt. He was dead. Killed in the line of duty. And she was about to leave the Agency he had led - after all he had done for her. Of course, it hadn’t been altruism that had made him make his offer. She liked to think that the director had wanted to help her, but she wasn’t naive - if he had merely cared about her, he could have sent her to a good foster family and probation officer. But he had seen her talent, her potential, and had recruited her. Turned her into a good spy personally loyal to him.

It had taken her some time to realise that. For all he had done for her, given her life meaning, as cliche as it sounded, he had also used her. Ruthlessly, at times, no matter whether or not he trusted her to come through.

More than a little like her father, in that way.

And Chuck’s father struck a number of the same chords. She couldn’t yet tell if he was cut from the same cloth as her own father and the director, or if he was truly just caught in circumstances beyond his control, trapped by honest mistakes.

She hoped that once she found the answer to this question, it wouldn’t hurt Chuck.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Hollywood, February 9th, 2008**

Having a clandestine meeting in Hollywood of all places still seemed a little weird to Chuck, even though the sheer number of tourists on the streets was an excellent way to hide in a crowd. It was just that with all the paparazzi around, and the security cameras, it felt as if privacy was in rather short supply in the area.

The benches offering places to sit and rest, or eat your lunch, were too exposed for his taste. Two spies sitting down on the same bench, apparent strangers, to exchange information, might be a staple of spy movies, but this wouldn’t be a quick meeting or handover. And Chuck really didn’t want to risk anyone with a parabolic mic overhearing them. He hadn’t heard of paparazzi using them, but while publishing such records might be illegal, who could say if the yellow press wasn’t using such means to track and investigate celebrities?

So, they had to meet in a private space. Without anyone else being able to listen in. 

Which was why Chuck was currently posing as a taxi driver picking up a client. Once he found… There! Dad’s disguise was god, Chuck had to admit - he wouldn’t have recognised him if he hadn’t known to look for that particular hat. Dad looked like just another tourist with no taste.

As soon as they were rolling, Chuck spoke up. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, Chuck.”

“How’s your wound?” A safe topic to start.

“Healing fine, as far as I can tell.”

Oh. “Do you have a doctor’s skillset in your Intersect?” And if so, why didn’t Chuck had one?

“Oh, no! But I have had to deal with the odd wound from time to time, without having access to a doctor,” Dad told him, a little too nonchalantly. Having to treat your own wounds? Sew yourself up? Chuck shuddered at the thought.

“So…” Dad said after they reached the next highway. “Did you talk to Ellie?”

“Yes.” Chuck nodded. “She wants to talk to you in person, so we’ll have to arrange something. Preferably something sound-proof with room to pace.”

That made his dad wince. “That bad?”

“She’s not happy about some of your choices, and she will want to vent properly,” Chuck explained. And trying to drive while listening to that conversation - or taking part in it - seemed to be asking for an accident.

“I deserve that, I guess.” Dad sighed.

His father had a wry, sad grin on his face, Chuck checked with a glance in the rear mirror. They were on the highway, but Chuck still had to focus on the traffic. Not being able to see his father’s face apart from quick glances like this kind of made meeting in person pointless, Chuck realised. Not quite like talking on the phone, but not much better. Until they hit a traffic jam, at least.

“So, you wanted to talk,” Dad said after a few seconds spent in silence.

“Uh, yes.” Chuck took a deep breath. This was it. No more stalling. Time to talk.

“About?”

“Uh… killing,” Chuck said.

“Oh.”

Oh? What did he mean with ‘oh’. “I mean, I’ve killed myself - I’ve killed as well, I mean, not that I killed myself. Mostly demons, which are different, but people as well.” When the Intersect had kicked in. “But…” How to say this? He had planned this speech, but he seemed to have forgotten his preparations!

“You’re upset about me killing Gonzàlez and the others.”

“Yes.” Chuck glanced at him again, briefly. His father looked serious, not shocked.

“I’d say that it was necessary, and they were killers.”

He gritted his teeth. “We’re killers, too, Dad.”

“Do you work for a drug cartel? Or have you killed your fellow agents?” his father retorted.

“No.” Unless Fulcrum’s agents counted.

“I didn’t like doing it, Chuck. But it was necessary.”

“‘Necessary’?” Dad sounded like Casey.

“Killing Gonzàlez and Lopez was the plan from the start. Besson and Dubois… well, she tried to kill us, and Besson defended Gonzàlez.”

“Yes, it was the plan, but…” Chuck bit down on his lip. His reasoning sounded stupid, but he couldn’t help it.

“You don’t like that it was me doing the killing.”

“Yes!” Chuck spat.

“I would be a hypocrite if I expected others to kill for me, but wouldn’t do it myself.”

He didn’t have an answer to that that wouldn’t make him look like a hypocrite. But he had another question - the main question. “And how far are you willing to go?” How many was he willing to kill?

“As far as necessary to keep you and Ellie safe.”

Damn.

He glanced over his shoulder. Dad was watching him with a serious and sad expression.

“How far would you go to keep Ellie safe?”

That was an unfair question - Chuck wasn’t the one whose mistake had endangered Ellie by linking her with the CIA’s most wanted. On the other hand, Chuck had endangered her by becoming the Intersect, though that hadn’t been his choice.

“Would you rather leave her forever than kill a murderer so you could be staying with her?”

That was a really unfair question. “And what if you don’t know if they’re a murderer?”

“If they were trying to kill you or me, that’d be enough for me to make a call.”

That was rubbing it on. Somewhat. Chuck sighed. “I don’t like it,” he spat.

“I know. And that’s a good thing.”

*****


	33. The Fallout part 2

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 9th, 2008**

Chuck wasn’t staring morosely at a paused game when she came home, Sarah noticed, but he wasn’t looking happy either, watching the news on the TV. So, the talk with his father hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped. But how bad had it been? She’d find out. “Hi, Chuck.”

“Hi, Sarah,” he replied, smiling rather tiredly at her.

She sat down next to him on the couch. “Nothing new at The Castle.”

“You haven’t started the investigation into Gonzàlez yet?”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “It seems that this will be left to the police until we ‘discover’ the electronic trail to his accounts.”

“Ah.” He sighed. “You’re not asking after my meeting with Dad?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me when you’re ready,” she lied.

“Uh.” Another sigh. “He would do it again, and worse, to keep me and Ellie safe.”

“He said that?”

“Yes.”

She looked into his eyes. “So would I.”

He didn’t reply for a moment that felt far, far too long. Then he nodded. “I know. But you’re a spy. Dad’s…” He shrugged.

“He’s a spy as well,” she told him.

“I guess so.”

“And he’s your father.” Which was the problem.

“Yes. But that’s not the problem. Not the real problem - I mean, I don’t like what he did, but, well… I understand why he did it.”

She nodded. That was good. “And what’s the real problem?”

“Well, I’m planning to become a spy myself, right?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I know, we talked about this already - I know that I don’t have to do… don’t have to kill people. Not like an assassin, at least, you know what I mean, don’t you? Right. But… what if I start killing like… well, Dad?”

Or like me, Sarah thought. “You won’t,” she told him, hoping she wasn’t lying. “That you’re so concerned about it is proof of that.”

He didn’t seem to believe her. “Aren’t converts usually the most fanatical?”

“Chuck, you’ve killed before, and you didn’t like it. And even now, when you understand your father’s reasons, you don’t like it.” She slowly shook her head. “You won’t turn into a killer. Trust me.”

She could see him struggle.

“Trust me,” she repeated herself.

He finally smiled and nodded, but she knew he still worried. It was a good first step, though.

*****

Chuck sighed - silently; he didn’t want to wake up Sarah - and stared at the ceiling in their bedroom. She was convinced that he wouldn’t become a killer. And she was an experienced spy - she knew assassins. And she had been there, as you’d say. Well, as some people said on the Internet. Or wrote.

He blinked. His thoughts were wandering. But he had to focus on this. This was important. Crucial. He sighed again. He had been thinking about this all day and he wasn’t any closer to a resolution than before. Talking with Sarah had helped, but… without being arrogant about it, as his girlfriend, she was a little biased. He needed a more objective opinion.

Morgan was his best friend. He nodded. He’d talk to Morgan tomorrow.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, February 10th, 2008**

“Morgan!” First thing after entering the Buy More, Chuck made a beeline to his friend.

“What did I do?” Morgan asked, wincing a little. “Or what didn’t I do?”

Chuck blinked. “What? No, no. I just need to talk to you.”

“Yes?” Morgan nodded and stood a little straighter.

“Not here. In private.”

“Oh. One of those talks?” Morgan asked.

“Yes.” Chuck nodded, then reconsidered. “Wait! What kind of talk are you thinking about?”

“The kind that involves Caridad or Sarah?”

“No, no. Not that kind of talk. Well, in a way. Look, I need some advice. And not about my love life.”

“Ah.” Morgan smiled at him, then reached up and patted Chuck’s shoulder. “Of course I’ll help any way I can. You’re my best friend!”

“Thanks, Morgan.” Chuck smiled at his friend, though he felt a little guilty - he hadn’t been spending as much time as he used to with Morgan. 

Then he remembered the game night mess and didn’t feel guilty any more.

*****

“So, what kind of advice do you need?” Morgan asked an hour and a half later as they entered the home entertainment display room. “If it’s about beating that sniper nest in the expansion…”

“No, no,” Chuck shook his head.

“Ah.” Morgan nodded. “Well, it was a long shot anyway - you wouldn’t ditch your break with Sarah for gaming tips, would you?”

“Of course not!” Chuck exclaimed. As if anyone would. Well, Morgan perhaps. “No,” he continued before Morgan could speculate some more. “I need some advice about killing.”

“What?” Morgan was staring at him with wide eyes, obviously surprised.

Chuck closed his eyes and sighed. “That came out wrong. I don’t need advice about how to kill. I need advice about how to _handle_ killing.”

“Oh.” Morgan reached for the armrest of the couch next to him, then leaned against it. “Is this about the Caribbean?”

“No.” Chuck shook his head. “It’s…” He took a deep breath. “Have you ever executed someone?”

“Oh,” Morgan repeated himself. “No, Phil was always the one to do that, when it was necessary. Did you have to, uh, execute a spy?”

“No.” After a moment, Chuck added: “But I saw it happen.”

“And now you’re not sure how you feel about your love killing someone in cold blood? Well, I do have some experience with that, indeed.” Morgan nodded.

“What? No, it wasn’t Sarah,” Chuck told him.

“You saw Casey killing someone, and now you’re worried that he’ll flip and kill everyone in the store?”

“No, no. I’m not worried about that!” Although… perhaps he should be worried about it, Chuck realised. Working in retail was stressful, everyone knew that, and the Buy More staff was a little more colourful than most. Even Chuck had fantasised a few times about hurting Jeff and Lester, after all. “Anyway, it’s not about Casey’s possible serial killer tendencies.” He blinked. “Or, in a way, it might be.”

Morgan gasped. “You think he’s going to come after us? First Jeff and Lester, then me?”

“No, no!” Chuck held up his hand. “Let’s forget about the risk of Casey going postal for a moment, alright?”

“Alright. But I am now worried, Chuck.”

Chuck sighed again. “I’m worried that I’ll become like Casey.” There, he’d said it.

Morgan was staring at him with a rather dumbfounded expression. “What?”

“I’m afraid that I might end up like Casey - always ready to kill someone. You know, slippery slope, coverts being fanatics?” Chuck smiled encouragingly at Morgan.

Although his friend seemed to be more afraid and disturbed than encouraged. “Chuck… are you getting enough sleep?”

Was that a dig at his relationship with Sarah? It counted as rest, anyway. “Yes, my sleep schedule is perfectly alright,” Chuck replied. This wasn’t like when they had started Everquest together.

“So, why would you come up with such an absurd fear?” Morgan shook his head, chuckling. “You’re the last person who’d become like Casey. Hey, the fact that you’re worried about it is proof that you won’t become like him.”

“Sarah said the same thing.” Chuck sighed and leaned back, resting his head on the couch’s back.

“You talked to her about it?” 

Morgan sounded a little hurt, he noticed. “Well, it came up at home.”

“Ah.” His friend nodded. “And you didn’t trust her. I mean, her judgement.”

“No!” Of course he did trust Sarah. “I mean, yes… I needed a second opinion by someone who knows me well and isn’t biased.” And wasn’t a spy.

“Ah.” Morgan smiled. “Well, in my expert opinion, you’re not in danger of becoming a stone-cold killer like Casey.”

“Thank you, Morgan.” Chuck was surprised to realise that he meant it. Two people close to him - closest, though in different ways - believed in him.

If only he believed in himself as much. But it certainly helped.

Although it was worrying - more than a little worrying, if he was honest - that both Morgan and himself had been using Casey as an example of the worst case. The NSA agent was their - well, Chuck’s - teammate, after all.

Well, every team had their dark horse. Or something like that. “Let’s get back to work,” Chuck said.

But when he opened the door, he was almost bowled over by Jeff and Lester. 

“Hide us!”

“Help us!”

“He’ll kill us!”

“What?” Chuck managed to say as the two troublemakers rushed past him and hid behind the couch.

“What did you do?” Morgan asked.

And there came Casey, glaring.

Chuck swallowed and stepped in the agent’s way. “Whoa, whoa, whoa… let’s calm down before we do something everyone will regret.”

Casey snarled, but Chuck stood his ground. “What happened?”

“They wrecked my lunch,” Casey spat.

“It was an accident!” Lester piped up from behind the couch.

Chuck saw Casey’s eyes widen and spread his arms to hold him off. “Hold on!”

“They’re about to have an accident,” Casey growled.

“What about they’re about to pay you another lunch?” Chuck smiled as widely as he could. “Two lunches?”

Casey stared at him, then sneered again, but nodded. Well, he jerked his head up and down, but that was Casey for you.

Crisis averted.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, February 10th, 2008**

“...and I really wonder if those two are bent on suicide by Casey.” He shook his head as he opened the carton with the curry.

“If he really wanted to kill them, he wouldn’t go after them like this,” Sarah told him, blowing on her Peking duck. “Thank you for buying lunch, by the way.”

“It’s the least I could do for missing our break,” he replied. “And I know that, but Jeff and Lester are… you need to get used to them. Build up a tolerance.” And Jeff was a demon.

“Casey’s been through worse. He was a marine before he joined the NSA - if he’s still sane after a decade in that business, then a pair of store staff won’t break his mind.” She took a bite and smiled. “Mhh. That’s good. Did you find a new take-out?”

“Not new, but it’s a bit further from here than our usual selection, so I rarely head there for lunch,” he replied. “But I’m not sure if he’s actually sane.”

She didn’t roll her eyes, but the look she gave him conveyed the message anyway. “Chuck, Casey’s a sniper. If that made you insane, we’d have hundreds of serial killers in the country.”

That was a terrifying thought.

“Although,” she went on with a frown, “speaking of serial killers, without the FBI suppressing the evidence, most vampire killings would trigger a serial killer flag just from the number of missing persons in a given location.”

Chuck nodded. “Yes, the FBI does that. And that’s also how the Council finds a lot of the established vampires and demons. And the odd human serial killer, I guess.”

“And how do they handle them?”

“They usually pass them to the authorities - if they manage to catch them alive. Not everyone cooperates.”

“Ah.” She took another forkful, closing her eyes for a moment and moaning softly. “That’s really good.”

She looked like… He blushed a little. And licked his lips for a reason that had nothing to do with his own meal. Then he blinked. “Are you trying to distract me?”

Her grin was answer enough, but she quickly grew serious. “Chuck, you shouldn’t dwell on this like that. That’s not good for you.”

Hadn’t she told him that worrying about starting to enjoy killing was a good sign? He didn’t ask, though - that would have been petty. “Alright,” he lied.

“Good.”

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 10th, 2008**

“Agents, Mr Bartowski, you’ve got a new mission,” General Beckman said, frowning at them through the screen, before her image shrunk and a few files and pictures appeared next to her. “Yesterday, Agent Aaron Cooper didn’t show up to work. He was one of a number of suspects for having ties to Fulcrum, so a team was sent to his apartment. They found it deserted.

“Scumbag ran. Someone must have leaked that he was being investigated,” Casey muttered.

“That is being looked into, yes. But more importantly, when the logs of his computer access were analysed, it was discovered that he had been trying to access the database of some of our contractors.”

Chuck gasped. “Like the one who prepare the safe houses - or this base?”

She nodded with a grim expression. “Exactly, Mr Bartowski. While it has been confirmed that he was unable to penetrate the database with the most sensitive information, we discovered that he managed to access secondary and tertiary files - including travelling plans which will have allowed him to deduce that there was a secret construction in Los Angeles.”

Chuck felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. If Fulcrum knew… but Los Angeles was big, and they already knew that the Intersect was in the rough area, didn’t they?

The general wasn’t done talking, of course. “This happened a month ago. Fulcrum must have been investigating Los Angeles for at least a few weeks, without us noticing,” she told them as her frown deepened.

Hey! That wasn’t their fault.

“This throws a new light on the assassination of Gonzàlez.”

“Oh?” What did she mean? Chuck grew tense, as, he noticed, did the others - even Bane.

Beckman glanced at him for a moment, and he forced himself to smile, “Sorry.”

“We’ve been keeping tabs on this and similar incidents in your area of operations. The police investigation blames a rival cartel, but according to our analysis, the assassination would also fit the modus operandi of a foreign intelligence agency - or a rogue CIA operation.”

“Fulcrum.” Sarah nodded with a serious expression, and if Chuck hadn’t known better, he would have believed that she had no idea what had really happened.

“Correct. It’s conjecture, but it’s the best lead we have. Investigate the incident and find out if Fulcrum was involved in it. And if what’s case, what their goal was.” The general nodded at them.

“Yes, ma’am,” Casey snapped as everyone straightened.

“Dismissed, agents, Mr Bartowski.”

Chuck glanced at Bane. They would have to investigate their own mission and ‘discover’ the planted evidence without revealing themselves to the general or Bane. And all that while the real Fulcrum mission, whatever it was, continued undeterred.

Great.

“A Fulcrum operation in Los Angeles,” Bane commented, shaking her head. “At least we have a lead. We’ll need to get the most up to date files from the police investigation.”

Casey snorted. “Won’t help much, what with the rubble still smoking. They haven’t even finished tallying the dead, much less identifying everyone.”

Which, to be fair, was a little difficult, what with the entire building having collapsed, Chuck knew. Dubois’s body was buried under ten stories worth of debris and rubble.

“It’s a first step. If Fulcrum went after Gonzàlez, then they had a reason. We’ll have to investigate him to find out what it was,” Bane insisted.

Chuck nodded in agreement. “Exactly. I’ll see about getting the records from their database.”

Bane looked surprised for a moment before she nodded. Chuck couldn’t tell if it was about his support for her or his hacking, but he certainly hoped that he wouldn’t have to ask Dad for help for this. Which, he realised, he would have to do anyway so the data could be suitably altered and sanitised, if needed. But at least things were progressing somewhat according to plan in this area. With regards to Fulcrum, though… “So. What do we do about security? There is a Fulcrum operation out there. Probably not as out as we’d like. Especially me.”

“We continue as we were,” Sarah said. “Our cover was set up with such scrutiny in mind.”

“Uh…” Chuck knew this, but that had been in the abstract, or something. Knowing that there were enemy spies in the area searching for him changed things. Or should change things. “What about decoys, or something?”

“Those would only confirm that we’re in the area,” Sarah pointed out. “If we don’t do anything, they might give up and assume that was a decoy.”

“Ah.” Chuck nodded - that made sense. Although in a warped way. Which, he realised, he could easily follow. “So, I’ll get started on the police files,” he said, making a point of flexing his fingers as he sat down at the base’s main computer terminal.

“You do that. We’ll recon the actual area,” Casey said.

“Careful,” Bane told them. “This might be Fulcrum’s way to lure us out of cover.”

Casey scoffed. “We know what we’re doing.”

Uh. Chuck drew a slow, deep breath as he had a thought. Bane had a good point actually, even though she didn’t know it - Fulcrum might suspect that the CIA was behind the Gonzàlez killing. That kind of assassination certainly would fit what they knew about the CIA’s effort in Los Angeles.

He blinked. Both Bane and Fulcrum might be correct despite working with entirely incorrect assumptions. He glanced at Sarah and Casey. Had they thought of this as well? They would have, being experienced spies, of course. Still, what if they hadn’t? They might underestimate the danger. And Chuck couldn’t really warn them without Bane getting suspicious… “Be careful anyway,” he said. “Please.”

Casey rolled his eyes, but Sarah nodded. “We will.”

Then they were gone, leaving Chuck with Bane in the base. Well, he had a task to do himself. He grabbed a coke from the fridge and started working.

But he had barely begun his first attempts to poke the police’s firewall when Bane joined him and looked over his shoulder. “How is it going?” she asked - uncomfortably close to his ear.

He shifted in his seat a little, turning his head to face her, but she didn’t back off. “Uh. I’m just starting on the LAPD firewall. It’s not the best-maintained setup, and their IT security isn’t that good, but it’ll take some time to find an exploit to let me in.”

“How long will it take? I could do social hacking to get you a password.”

“Uh… shouldn’t be longer than a day,” Chuck said. “I’ve done this before.” For Morgan and Caridad, when they needed some information from the police and didn’t want to ask the Council for help, but it counted.

“Ah.” She nodded as she straightened, giving him more space, but kept her hand on the backrest of his chair. “Good. It would take about as long to arrange a social hack.”

By which she meant seducing some IT support guy, Chuck knew. “Yes,” he said. “There’s also the option to physically break in - there’s always a desk with the password on a post-it note next to the screen.”

“You’ve done that as well?” she asked.

He shrugged in response. “Once or twice.” With Sarah and Casey.

“You’ve got experience.” The way she said it seemed to hint at something else. Or was Chuck misreading this? She might just be friendly after he supported her plan. On the other hand… 

“A little,” he said. “But I should get on with it.”

She patted his shoulder as he turned back to the screen. A friendly gesture of support. Or so he hoped.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 10th, 2008**

The police had cordoned off the still smoking ruins, but that hadn’t stopped the press and spectators from gathering. Even now, three days later, there was a decent crowd. Not enough, though, to hide Sarah and Casey from an observant spy.

But there were other means. Quite convenient ones, even. Sarah suppressed a smile as she approached the police officer apparently in charge. “Officer? We’re from the Department of Public Health. We’re here to take soil and air samples.”

“What?”

She repeated her spiel while Casey, standing behind her, grunted something about this being a waste of time.

“I wasn’t informed of that,” the police officer told her.

“Oh, great!” Casey exclaimed. “Another screwup!”

“Please check with your superior, then,” she told him. “We transmitted the forms yesterday.” At least that was what the backdated entries would claim.

“But forensics isn’t yet done here,” the man protested.

“Should give them a kick in the ass, then,” Casey grumbled.

Sarah smiled sweetly. “Please excuse my colleague; it has been a rough few days.”

“Here too, damn,” the cop replied.

“But we really need to take samples. What if the building’s remains are releasing toxic substances? Can you imagine the consequences?”

“Hell of a lot of lawsuits,” Casey added.

Sighing, the cop pulled out his radio and called headquarters. It still took ten more minutes until they got permission to enter, and they were restricted to the outskirts - but that was, again, a good thing.

They walked the perimeter, stopping to take pictures and ‘take samples’ every few yards - a cover to observe their surroundings.

“We should’ve taken Bartowski with us,” Casey grumbled after a few minutes. “The Intersect was made for this.”

“It’s too dangerous for him,” Sarah replied. They had been in disguise during the mission, but Chuck wasn’t a very experienced actor yet. And what if he had a flashback in the middle of the ruins? This had been probably the most stressful mission to date for him. “And he can check our pictures.”

“You can’t keep protecting him, Walker,” Casey replied in a low voice. “If he’s to be a spy, he needs to be able to face this.”

Did he know what Sarah feared? Or was this just a dig at Chuck’s relative inexperience? “Someone also has to hack the police system,” she replied. “And he’s the best hacker we have available.” Apart from Orion, but they couldn’t risk bringing in Chuck’s dad with Bane on the mission.

Casey grumbled something she didn’t catch.

She glanced at him. “Hm?”

“It’ll be a bitch and a half to dig out all of this. They might just bulldoze it over.”

“Without finding Dubois,” Sarah said. That would be an ideal outcome - a perfect scapegoat for the CIA. Then she blinked. “Take a look at the forensic team there,” she whispered.

“Full masks and suits?” Casey snorted. “With firemen and cops having walked all over the rubble already? A very good way to hide their faces. Let’s see if they take a break and keep the masks on.”

They didn’t. During the time Casey and Sarah walked the perimeter, the forensic team she had spotted didn’t take a break, nor did any of the three people pull up their breathing mask. Unlike others working in the area.

“A buck says they’re spies,” Casey said. 

Sarah didn’t take the bet. “Let’s see if we can find out more about them.”

A few chats with cops later, they knew that the suspicious people were supposedly an FBI team. But if they were from the FBI, the agency would know - such things went through Homeland Security these days. Someone in the FBI could be playing games, of course - this was a high-profile case. But Sarah didn’t think that that was the case. “Let’s Chuck run this through the system.”

“Yes. Let him be useful,” Casey said.

She glared at him, but didn’t say anything - it wouldn’t be worth it.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 10th, 2008**

An order requisitioning a van. Followed by a face, followed by case files. Murder. Assassination. Kidnapping. Sabotage. More murder and sabotage. And theft.

“Uh oh.” Chuck drew a sharp breath - he didn’t gasp. “Guys? I’ve flashed.”

“You did?” Bane, who had been looking through the data Sarah had brought herself, turned to face him. “What did you find out?”

Sarah echoed her question as she came over to look at Chuck’s screen. Even Casey put the gun he was maintaining down.

“That masked guy leading the suspicious team?” Chuck asked. “Bert Vandermas. CIA spy. Nicknamed ‘The Chameleon’ since he’s an expert in disguises. Sabotage, assassinations, infiltration - he’s done a lot of that. And according to the CIA files, he’s currently on medical leave…”

“It seems Fulcrum still has their hooks in the Agency’s medical branch,” Bane commented. “Their agents should have been rooted out after they faked Larkin’s death!”

Chuck suppressed the familiar mix of guilt and pain at the reminder of Bryce’s death. “Well, they can go over the doctors again. But more importantly… what do we do now? The Chameleon could pass as anyone - according to his files, he even disguised himself as a general’s mistress once, to assassinate the man!” He pointed at that file on the screen.

“Those were special circumstances,” Sarah told him after skimming the report. “The general apparently had his mistress wear a veil on certain meetings so she wouldn’t be recognised.”

“So women with veils are a danger,” Chuck said.

“Yes, Bartowski. Stay away from veiled women,” Casey agreed in a mocking tone.

“This is serious,” Bane cut in. “Vandermas will be able to recon a lot of places without us noticing.”

“Yes!” Chuck nodded. “I didn’t flash on his disguises - I flashed on the van’s requisitioning forms.”

“They still have to recognise you. No one but us and the general knows you’re the Intersect,” Sarah said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

“That’s true,” Bane said. “Los Angeles is a big city - the odds of him walking into the Buy More are very, very low.”

Chuck nodded, though he disagreed - Vandermas is an expert on disguises. He might recognise Chuck as the missing banker from the Gonzàlez case. After all, the police were already aware that it had been a cover identity since they hadn’t actually been able to fake actual employment at an investment bank. Worse, the traces Dad had planted to frame Gonzàlez for the payments to Ellie might lead Fulcrum straight to Chuck...

He had to inform the others, as soon as they were away from Bane!

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 10th, 2008**

“...and if they follow up the money trail Dad has prepared, they’ll come to Ellie and me,” Chuck finished as they reached their street. “What can we do?”

Sarah looked grim, he noticed. “It’s too late to remove all the traces,” she said. “We’ll have to fake a cover story for a possible CIA involvement in the assassination that doesn’t involve you and Ellie.”

“That still leaves us - me and her - linked to Gonzàlez,” Chuck pointed out.

“A dead end,” Sarah said, before wincing, “Sorry.”

“It’s OK,” Chuck replied. “But how do we do it?”

“We’ll have to fake a CIA operation involving drug smuggling and money laundering,” Sarah said. “And you’ll have to play the harmless overqualified computer technician convincingly so that Vandermas will assume you were simply a potential recruit for Gonzàlez when he investigates you and Ellie.”

Chuck slowly nodded. “Alright.” He could do it. He had to do it. For Ellie. “I’ve been a harmless IT support guy for years,” he said, forcing himself to laugh. “It’ll be easy.”

“But you’ll still have to work on the case so Bane won’t grow suspicious,” Sarah pointed out.

“Uh.”

That would complicate things.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, February 12th, 2008**

There was a suspicious man. Wearing a trenchcoat? It wasn’t that cold outside. And he had been staring at the laptop shelf for half an hour as if he couldn’t decide which model he wanted. Despite Jeff’s help. But would The Chameleon be as obvious? Or would he assume that such a disguise was too obvious to be considered suspicious by other spies?

Chuck didn’t know. But he kept an eye on the man. And on the man in the far too expensive suit studying the microwave ovens. People who wore such suits didn’t generally shop in the Buy More - they had people for that. And usually wanted more expensive appliances and gadgets anyway.

One day into mission ‘playing innocent’, and Chuck could already feel his stress levels rising steadily with every hour in the store. At least Bane seemed to have accepted that Chuck ‘would have to play it safe just in case Fulcrum has more information than we thought’, so she didn’t question him being far more cautious when visiting The Castle instead of checking up on the base during breaks and lunch.

Still…

“Hi, Chuck!”

He jumped at the sudden greeting about an inch from his ear, whirling around… to face a giggling Slayer. “Caridad!”

She nodded. “What’s wrong? You usually aren’t that tense.”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just, you know…” He shrugged.

“Ah.” She nodded.

Chuck wasn’t quite sure what she was thinking. “How do you do?”

“Oh, I’m doing well. We finished tracking down that demon nest, and I totally showed up Vi!”

“Really?” He hadn’t kept track of that, not with everything else going on. Two Slayers usually could handle almost everything.

“Oh, yes!” She beamed at him. “I killed far more…” She trailed off and cocked her head, staring with narrowed eyes at a young man browsing the game section for a few seconds before turning back to Chuck. “Sorry, just thought I’d felt a demon. Anyway, we were tracking them for days, you know? Through the sewers, as usual, but when we found them, it was great!”

Chuck nodded as she started to detail a gory, bloody fight that apparently counted as a great time. Slayers.

Then he noticed that the young man she had been staring at had vanished.

He turned to Caridad. “Was that a demon?”

“What?” She looked around. “The weird guy? No. Nothing hinky. Just… weird.”

“‘Weird’.”

“Yes, weird.” She nodded emphatically, then made a point of looking at Lester.

“Uh, right,” Chuck said. Weird indeed.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 12th, 2008**

“...and Jeff and Lester managed to wreck another PC in an attempt to convince me that they are Mac-exclusive tech support.” Chuck sighed as he started setting the table.

“And what did you do?” Sarah asked from the stove.

“Told them to fix the PC or it’d come out of their salary.” He wouldn’t fall for their antics. And Nerd Herd needed more PC guys once Chuck was working for the Council.

“Good. Did you see any suspicious people spying on you?”

“Only a weird one Caridad noticed,” Chuck replied. 

“‘Weird’?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Her words. Not a demon, though, according to her.” Chuck shrugged. “He disappeared very quickly, though. Could have been a mage. Most of them get nervous when a Slayer pays attention to them.” They had a reason for that, of course - many witches and warlocks weren’t exactly using magic for good.

“Ah.” She removed the pot and poured the water through the sieve in the sink. “The spaghetti are done.”

“It’s a good last meal,” he commented five minutes later. 

She rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling, a little. “Chuck - we’re just going over a few more details with Ellie and Devon. It’s not the end of the world.”

“It’s never just a few details with Ellie,” he retorted. “First the seating arrangement…”

“We did that already.”

“...then the dessert…” he went on.

“Also already ordered.”

“...and then the last minute alterations to the decorations.” He knew his sister.

“The wedding is still two months away,” she told him. “That’s not exactly last minute.”

“That’s even more of a reason for her to change things.” He shook his head. “We should have hired a wedding planner. One of those who don’t take no for an answer and don’t listen to the bride and groom.”

“I don’t think that a wedding planner who doesn’t listen to their clients’ wishes would have much success,” she pointed out.

“They would only have to handle Ellie’s wedding, and I’d be happy.”

She laughed at that. “Although there’s one thing we need to discuss with them.”

She was smiling in that ‘I’ve got bad news’ way, he noticed. “Uh… what?”

“Security.”

Oh. He closed his eyes and sighed. “Ugh.” That wouldn’t be pretty.

*****

It wasn’t.

“Security?” Ellie had skipped the ‘what do you mean’ part and gone straight to ‘explain!’. With narrowed eyes and a deep frown.

“Well, between the spies and the Slayers attending, there might be trouble,” Chuck pointed out. “More trouble than just a few unruly drunks. I don’t mean between the guests,” he quickly explained. “But there might be an attack or something.”

“An attack. On our wedding,” Ellie said in a flat voice.

“It’s just a possibility,” Sarah said. “Unlikely, but we still should take a few precautions.”

“Yes,” Chuck agreed, nodding. “Perhaps a Slayer or two on guard. A sniper on overwatch, maybe a rifle team on standby…” He trailed off when he saw Ellie’s expression darkening.

“You want to turn our wedding into an armed camp?” She stood, placing both palms on the table. “Devon! Say something!”

“Well…” Captain Awesome looked uncomfortable. “If there’s a risk of an attack, by demons or, uh, spies…”

Ellie glared at him for a moment, mouth opening, but she closed it again without saying anything and sat down. “An attack on our wedding.”

“It’s not likely,” Sarah repeated herself.

“Yes. With Council members attending, most demons should know better than to attempt anything,” Chuck said. No one liked death by Willow. Or death by Slayer. Unless there were suicidal demons.

“That’s not really reassuring, Chuck,” Ellie retorted. “Can you imagine trying to explain to our guests how - and why - a couple of demons were hacked to pieces in front of the church?”

“Because they couldn’t enter hallowed ground?” Chuck’s encouraging smile died quickly in the face of Ellie’s expression.”Sorry. Bad joke. Anyway, we could claim it was a badly-thought-out performance? Live-action roleplay with Hollywood special effects?”

“At our wedding.”

“Well…” Chuck shrugged. “It’s something the staff at the Buy More could come up with, actually,” he pointed out.

That didn’t calm down Ellie, though. It made her more apprehensive about inviting anyone connected to the store.

Which, Chuck had to admit, was not an altogether unreasonable stance. Jeff and Lester’s latest attempt to convince Ellie and Devon to let them play at the wedding by serenading them was just one of the more obvious reasons for that.

“Uh. Speaking of unlikely…” he said, clearing his throat. “Did you notice anyone, uh, stalking you lately?”

“‘Stalking’?” And the frown was back, with friends

He smiled weakly. “Well, you see, there’s this enemy spy…”

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, February 14th, 2008**

Still no sign of the Chameleon. Of course that didn’t mean that the spy wasn’t around - just that Chuck hadn’t spotted him. But that only made the whole situation worse. What if the enemy spy was observing Chuck at this very moment? Disguised as a harmless customer?

There were a number of possible disguises, Chuck noticed as he looked around the store. The housewife there - that floor-length new-age skirt could hide both a man’s legs as well as many weapons, and the knitted top was shapeless enough to be unisex. The hair could be a wig.

Or the man pushing a stroller. Who would suspect a spy using a baby? It was the perfect disguise.

Or the delivery guy. They could enter almost every building - and bring packages with them that could contain anything. Weapons, bombs, poison… Someone had to have thought of this before.

He sighed and pushed the crooked paper-maché heart away so he could check his screen for appointments. This year’s Valentine’s Day decor was particularly hideous. Pink and red hearts were everywhere in the store, at the most unsuitable places. And so many of them - the Buy More staff had picked the worst possible way to display enthusiasm for their job and placed the stupid things, both paper-maché as well as balloons, on every surface. Including the cash registers, in some cases.

He shook his head. At least it would be over by tomorrow. If they had done this with Christmas decorations...

“Hi, Chuck!”

He jerked, then rolled his eyes as he turned around, “Caridad! Don’t sneak up on me!”

“Sure,” she lied. “How are you doing?”

He shrugged, then nodded at the closest heart-shaped balloon.

“Ah.” She nodded, though she kept grinning. “So, speaking of Valentine’s day…”

“Yes?”

Instead of answering, she frowned and sniffed the air. “I’ve smelled that before, last night.”

“Oh?”

“On a patrol. Didn’t catch whoever it was, though.” She was looking around.

Someone had escaped a Slayer’s notice? And was stalking her? They had to be very good at shadowing...

Chuck’s eyes widened. Oh no!

*****


	34. The Fallout Part 3

**California, Burbank, Buy More, February 14th, 2008**

Oh my God! The Chameleon was stalking _Caridad_! Chuck gasped. Fulcrum was tracking the Slayer. Slayers, in this case.

But why? Did they know about the Supernatural? Or - Chuck gasped again - did they think this was the CIA’s secret project?

Either way, he had to inform the others. Including the Council.

And without getting tailed by the Chameleon.

“Chuck? What’s wrong?”

Uh oh. Caridad was looking at him with a frown. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Is that scent fresh? Is the guy still around?”

She sniffed again. “No. It’s not fresh.”

That didn’t mean that they weren’t under observation, of course - Fulcrum hadn’t sent just the Chameleon. And Chuck hadn’t identified the other spies with the agent. “We need to discuss this. Spy stuff,” he whispered.

“Oh.” He could see her eyes light up. Of course, for a Slayer, this was good news.

Whether it was good news for everyone else remained to be seen.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 14th, 2008**

“...and it seems that Fulcrum’s following Caridad, probably Vi as well.” Chuck nodded and sat down.

“Damn,” Casey spat, baring his teeth.

“This is bad,” Sarah agreed. “If Fulcrum is aware of the Supernatural - or, worse, involved in it, then they are far more dangerous than we thought.”

“On the other hand,” Bane pointed out, “if they think the Slayers are a top-secret CIA team, then they are unlikely to suspect that Chuck’s the Intersect.”

Casey sneered at her. “It also means that they’ll go after the Slayers and your boytoy, Bane.”

Morgan jerked and opened his mouth, Chuck saw. Before his friend could protest - or agree, Chuck couldn’t tell - Caridad scoffed. “So? We can kick their asses back to Langley!”

Vi nodded. “Now that we know they’re enemy spies, we’ll deal with them. Easy.” She grinned widely.

“It would behove you not to underestimate our enemy,” Phil admonished them. “Overconfidence is an often fatal weakness.”

Caridad ducked her head a little, but Vi frowned. “I’m not underestimating them, but what can they do? We wait until we spot them again, then we sneak up on them and knock them out.”

“Whether they actually are aware of the supernatural or not, we have to assume that they are now aware of your superhuman abilities,” Phil replied. “And since they are experienced agents, they will take appropriate measures. They certainly won’t underestimate you.”

“Why would they be aware of the Slayers’ abilities?” Bane asked.

Phil smiled a little ruefully. “I’m afraid that on a hunt, Slayers tend to be a little less than perfectly inconspicuous.”

Vi had the grace to blush, though Caridad frowned. “I didn’t jump any fence last night!”

“You just climbed them as fast as others could run the distance on the ground,” Vi whispered - loud enough so everyone present could hear it.

“Shut up!” Caridad hissed back. “You were the one who had to jump out of the second floor!”

Phil’s equally loud sigh silenced both.

Morgan cleared his throat. “But what will Fulcrum do? Will they try to kidnap them? Or kidnap their friends and family?”

“Probably the latter,” Sarah said. “I doubt that they are set up to capture a Slayer.”

“That’s their style. Threaten your family to make you betray your country. As soon as you do, they’ve got you,” Casey said.

“So, even though they think that I’m just a normal tech guy, they’re still going to come after me?” Chuck winced. He could do without that sort of irony.

Casey chuckled. The agent obviously appreciated dark humour. As long, Chuck added to himself, someone else was the butt of the joke.

“Not just you,” Sarah said. “They might come after Morgan, Phil, probably Ellie as well.”

Damn. Chuck gritted his teeth. If they went after Ellie and Devon… they were working at the hospital. Protecting them would be very difficult.

“We shall have to take appropriate countermeasures,” Phil said, as calmly as if he were discussing the weather.

The stereotypical stiff-upper-lip, Chuck thought. Of course, given their situation, Chuck wouldn’t mind being able to do the same.

He still had to inform Dad of this new development, after all. And Dad would certainly get involved since Ellie was in danger. And Ellie’s reaction...

Damn, this was a mess.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 14th, 2008**

“Ellie’s not happy about having to have a bodyguard,” Sarah heard Chuck say as soon as the door closed behind him.

Elie wasn’t happy about a lot of things, Sarah knew. With - usually - good reasons, of course. But this wasn’t Chuck’s fault, so it wasn’t fair that he had to take the brunt of his sister’s anger. On the other hand, who else could’ve told Ellie and Devon? “But she accepted it?” she asked as she entered the living room, carrying a tray with a few snacks.

“Yes. Grudgingly. At least Devon’s more sensible.” Chuck sighed as he sat down on the couch.

“They’re not used to such things,” Sarah pointed out as she put the tray down on the coffee table.

“Oh!” His face lit up as he grabbed a few of the cookies. “My favourites!”

“I know,” she told him with a smile. “Consider it an apology for having you face your sister by yourself.”

“Oh. You didn’t have to,” he replied. “This is, in a warped way, a family matter, after all. If not for Dad’s plan, and my own involvement, Ellie wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“And your father’s preplanned payments,” she added.

“Yeah.” He munched another cookie. “It’s a mess, though. Bane will be wondering how Fulcrum noticed the Slayers.”

“That’ll be answered once we ‘find’ the financial data your father planted.” It would actually work out better, this way - an answer to a question you were asking yourself was better received than some information out of the blue.

“Yes. If everything works as planned.” He sighed again.

“You don’t think that’ll happen.”

“We haven’t been lucky lately,” he told her. “Well, we were lucky in the fight. Fights,” he corrected himself. But that that happened? That Dubois broke into the apartment? That was bad luck.”

“That doesn’t mean that it’ll keep happening. That’s not how it works,” Sarah pointed out.

“Unless you’re cursed,” Chuck retorted.

What? “Cursed?”

He nodded. “Yes. Wishing someone bad luck is a common curse.”

“You think we’ve been cursed?” What could be done about that?

“No, no, it was just a thought.” He raised his hands. “If we were under a curse, I don’t think we’d have survived the fight. Those curses tend to go very bad very quickly. At least the ones I’ve heard about.”

She felt relieved. Being cursed would have…

He went on, interrupting her thoughts. “I’m no expert, though. I would have to ask Morgan.”

“Do it. It won’t hurt, at least.”

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “Alright. I’m sure it’s nothing, though.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“Right.” He nodded. She noticed that he was chewing on his lower lip.

“Is there something else?” she asked.

“Well, kinda.” He took a deep breath. “Bane.”

“What about her?” she asked, deliberately not crossing her arms. That would have made her look defensive.

“Well… do you think she’s in love with Morgan?”

Of course not! Bane was a trained honeytrap. The spy wouldn’t fall for her mark. But Chuck looked so earnest. So hopeful. “I don’t know,” Sarah told him. “But even if she loves him, the question is: Would she choose him - and us - over the CIA?” And would they take the risk of being wrong about her?

“Ah.” She saw him slump a little.

She leaned a little closer towards him. “Do you think Morgan has fallen for her?”.

He clenched his jaws. “He says that he knows that she’s a spy. That he knows what he’s doing.”

“You don’t believe him,” she stated.

He closed his eyes. “She’s a very beautiful woman, and he’s… Well, he hasn’t been very lucky in love. He’s vulnerable.”

Sarah nodded. Grimes would be an easy mark. And Bane knew that, of course.

“It would be great if…” He trailed off, then shook his head. “This is such a mess.”

Sarah nodded again. Yes, it was a mess. But they would sort it out. One way or the other.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 16th, 2008**

“I’ve gone over the financial data the FBI has recovered,” Bane announced as soon as Chuck and Sarah entered the base’s main room.

“Oh?” Chuck managed to say. Despite knowing this would - should - happen, he had a little trouble faking his reaction.

Sarah, on the other hand, naturally had no such trouble. She nodded as she smoothly took a seat at the table and asked: “What did you find out?” 

“Gonzàlez was the one behind the payment to Chuck’s sister,” Bane replied.

“Oh.” Surprise and puzzlement, Chuck told himself. “But… why? And how?”

Casey, leaning against the wall, scoffed. “You’re a nerd washed out from Stanford for cheating - according to your files. Perfect recruiting material for a drug lord in need of IT support.”

“Yes,” Bane agreed, glancing - or frowning - at Casey. “And helping your family is a common approach. That’s how the cartels foster goodwill among the population in their home country.”

“Uh. So he thought I’d become a criminal if he paid Ellie money?” Chuck played dumb. “‘Here’s some money, no join me and support my drug empire’?”

“He probably would have been a little more subtle about it,” Sarah pointed out as Casey snorted.

“Yes,” Bane said. “Hire you for legitimate reasons at first - that’s how he heard of you - and then gradually subvert you.”

“Also helps with ferreting out moles,” Casey added. “The DEA wouldn’t be able to place a man in Chuck’s position.”

“But they could try to recruit such a prospect as a mole,” Bane pointed out.

“They could, but the recruit wouldn’t be trained for it,” Sarah retorted, “and therefore more prone to making mistakes.”

Chuck imagined being pressured by the DEA to infiltrate a drug lord’s organisation. Like, two years ago. He winced. That would have been a disaster. No training, no skills, and pressure from the government… Although, but for the Intersect, it wasn’t so different from what had happened to him. Sort of, though - he wouldn’t have met Sarah. 

He shook his head and focused on the situation at hand, not hypothetical disasters. “So… what does that mean for us?”

“It means we know how Fulcrum found the Slayers,” Casey growled. “They went through you.”

Chuck winced again. He knew that it was staged, but Casey didn’t have to be so mean about it. 

“It’s not your fault,” Sarah told him, frowning at the NSA agent.

“It’s not,” Bane agreed. “Everyone missed Gonzàlez’s interest in you.”

Chuck glanced at her. Was that just some general criticism that none of the spies had spotted this in advance? Or did she suspect something, and this was a subtle hint that she had seen through their plan? Or an attempt to get a reaction?

Casey sneered at her. “He wasn’t under surveillance. But we didn’t look up every client whose phone he repaired.”

Hey! Chuck did a lot more than repairing phones - which was a difficult job, anyway.

“They would’ve had to look up his records in Stanford,” Bane pointed out.

“That likely happened before he received the Intersect,” Sarah replied. “Gonzàlez liked to play the long game.”

Bane nodded, but Chuck couldn’t help suspecting that she wasn’t convinced.

Damn.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 16th, 2008**

“So, the CIA knows about the link to Gonzàlez now?” Vi asked from where she was raiding their fridge.

“Yes,” Chuck replied, wondering if he should go and try to save the leftover casserole from yesterday - he had hoped to eat that one. But to go between a Slayer and what food they considered theirs? There were easier ways to commit suicide.

“Just as planned?” She grinned then started to make a sandwich that even Big Mike would baulk at.

“More or less.” Chuck couldn’t mention his suspicion about Bane. Casey would want to kill her, and if they tried to test the spy, and things went wrong as they had with Dubois… But what if Bane suspected, and informed the general? Could he risk Dad? And what about Morgan?

“Is something wrong?” Vi asked, frowning at him.

Slayers. Never distracted by food when you needed them to be. “Just feeling a little guilty about everything,” he lied.

Fortunately, she nodded and went back to chewing her way through what looked like a two-feet-long sub. “Don’t worry,” she said between bites, “We’re handling it. Caridad’s got Ellie covered, and I’m here.”

“Aren’t you supposed to go on patrol?”

“It’s not yet late enough for the bloodsuckers to come out,” she replied, finishing her meal. “And, technically, I’m lying in ambush.”

“Ambush?” What?

“Well, if they are tracking Caridad, they’ll come here, right?” She grinned. “And once they do, we can get them!”

Chuck hadn’t heard of that. And he doubted that Sarah had - or she would be here with them, not at The Castle handling more spy work. This sounded like a Slayer plan - simple, direct and impulsive. And that usually wasn’t a good plan when facing spies.

“They will expect that,” he said.

“But they won’t expect us,” Vi said. “We can track them by scent.” She tapped her nose with her index finger.

That was a good point. But… “What if they do expect that?” Slayers usually weren’t exactly subtle when they were hunting.

“What can they do? Cover up their scents with perfume? We’ll just track the perfume, then.” Vi grinned again, finishing her sandwich from hell.

“Well… they could lead you to an area saturated with the same scent,” Chuck said. “That would make it harder to track them - you would have to check for scents all around the edge, and you still wouldn’t know if a particular scent was the one you wanted.” He blinked. “Or they could get into a car and simply drive away.”

“Then I’ll follow them in my car.”

She had a car? “Did you train to follow someone without getting noticed?” Chuck asked. He knew how Slayers tended to drive, after all. Doing a hundred miles per hour or more on a highway while weaving between the slower cars like a hummingbird on acid was many things - terrifying first came to mind - but inconspicuous it wasn’t.

Vi pouted, and Chuck relaxed a little. It seemed that even the Slayer realised that things weren’t as simple as she wanted them to be. Then she grinned. “Oh, I’ve got the solution! Casey’s trained for that kind of driving, right?”

“Uh…”

“I’ll go ask him!” 

And she was out of the door. Great. Caridad wouldn’t like this. At all.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, February 18th, 2008**

“...and she goes and tells me not to worry, she’s got it handled! Can you imagine that? And the idiot didn’t tell her off, but went along with it! They’re now ‘guarding’ Ellie and Devon while at work! In Casey’s car!”

No, Caridad really didn’t like that Vi had recruited Casey as a driver. Even though it made sense. “Well, Vi’s just a visitor, so she doesn’t have to worry about her day job or cover story,” Chuck started to explain. 

“A visitor who’s overstayed her welcome,” Caridad interrupted him with a snarl.

“Uh…” He wasn’t going to touch that subject with a ten-foot pole. “Anyway, you’ve got an excuse to be in this area, working at the Wienerlicious, so you’re the logical choice to guard the Buy More without raising any suspicions.”

“That doesn’t mean Casey needed to go with her!” Caridad stomped her foot, and Chuck wondered how she avoided breaking her shoes - or the floor.

“Well… someone who can tail a car is needed to be with her,” Chuck pointed out. “And he’ll be missed the least by an enemy spy - what with Sarah being my girlfriend and Kirsten going out with Morgan.” That earned him another glare, though he didn’t quite know what for. “Anyway,” he went on, “perhaps…” He trailed off at her expression. 

She looked like she was about to gag. He sniffed the air, but couldn’t smell anything. Wait… a faint odour… something chemical. Growing stronger. What could that be?

His phone rang. Morgan’s ringtone. “Yes?”

“Chuck! There’s a chemical spill somewhere! The ventilation system is spreading it!”

Damn! It had to be Fulcrum. But would they go as far as poisoning an entire store? He didn’t think so. But could he risk being wring? “We have to evacuate the store,” he told Morgan.

“Are you sure?”

The customers had noticed it already - he could see a few holding their noses and looking around. “Yes.” He grabbed the microphone and selected the channel for announcements. “Dear customers, due to some technical difficulties, we need to evacuate the Buy More. Please leave the store in an orderly fashion. There is no...”

A man dropped, convulsing, in the middle of the hallway, and people started to scream. He gasped - then held a hand in front of his nose and mouth. What if this was poison? Nerve gas? Wasn’t that supposed to be odourless?

But there was a panic starting. He had to do something! There were children among the customers! “Caridad! Help the customers! Get the kids out! Keep them from being trampled!” 

As he rushed towards the fallen man, he spotted foam around his mouth. But no one else had collapsed, so it couldn’t be nerve gas, could it? Perhaps a seizure?

In any case, he had to get the man out of the store and to a paramedic or doctor before the crowd trampled over him. 

Chuck dodged a screaming woman running past him and was almost trampled by a man large enough to outmass Chuck and Casey put together yet still quite nimble. Then he had to climb over a toppled display, scaring away a group of teenagers trying to loot it, before he reached the man on the ground.

“Sir? Can you understand me?” he yelled to be heard over the screaming and crying all around them as he crouched down to check the man’s vitals. “Sir?”

He grabbed the man’s shoulder, reaching for his neck to check for a pulse, when, suddenly, the man rolled around, and Chuck saw that he was holding something in his hand.

Then pain filled him, and he collapsed, convulsing.

Taser, he realised, right before everything went dark.

*****

**California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, February 18th, 2008**

“Chuck’s not answering his phone!” Sarah grabbed the pistol from the concealed compartment under the register and vaulted over the counter. She saw people running out of the Buy More - an evacuation?

“Morgan’s on the phone,” Bane yelled after her. “Someone released a chemical inside.”

She glanced over her shoulder as she stuffed the pistol into her waistband - it wasn’t much, but it would hide it from casual glances. “Poison?”

“He doesn’t think so,” Bane replied.

That didn’t mean anything; Grimes wasn’t exactly an expert for poison. Unless it was related to demons. Probably. Sarah grabbed a gas mask anyway.

By the time she reached the entrance of the store, Chuck still hadn’t answered his phone and hadn’t appeared on their encrypted radio channel, either. Worse - the people rushing out of the store were screaming about poison gas.

Sarah hesitated a moment, which allowed Bane to catch up. Poison gas. Would Fulcrum go as far? Even if they wanted to blame terrorists through their moles in the CIA and NSA, this might be too much. But if this was a nerve gas...

But Chuck was inside and needed help. “Cover the main entrance!” she snapped. “I’ll go through the side entrance.”

“Copy.”

Sarah was running before she heard Bane’s answer. A chemical attack, a panicking crowd… what was Fulcrum’s game? Was this an attack on the entire team, a distraction, or an attempt to make them drop their cover?

If so, she was playing into their hands - but she had to get to Chuck. If there was a chemical attack… a gas mask wouldn’t do much against nerve gas. And Chuck would…

She forced the thought away as she rounded the corner. Staff members were rushing out of the side entrance. Jeff and Lester in the front. She stopped them with a glare. “Where’s Chuck?”

“Chuck? We haven’t seen him.”

“He gave the order to evacuate.”

“He was at the Nerd Herd desk,” Anna said.

That meant the closest exit would have been the main entrance. She clicked her radio - hopefully, Anna would think that her headset was connected to a phone - and called Bane. “Did Chuck leave the building?”

“I didn’t see him.”

If Chuck had left, he’d rush to establish communication. 

Sarah entered the building.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Anna called after her.

“She’s going for Chuck,” Sarah heard Lester reply before the door fell shut behind her. 

She raced through the maze-like backstage section, past the main ‘break room’, until she reached the store section. There was the Nerd Herd desk. No Chuck. She pulled the mask on and started searching. Most of the customers had left - she could see about a dozen or so, mostly teenagers, plundering the store.

But no Chuck. Where was he? “Where did the smell originate?” she asked.

“Morgan says in the central area.”

The food court. But it was deserted. 

“The fire brigade and the police have arrived,” Bane reported.

Sarah muttered a curse. If she stayed, they’d take her in for questioning. And if they found her gun… She heard footsteps coming towards her and ducked, taking cover behind a taco stand. If that was an enemy spy...

“It’s me, Sarah!”

Caridad? Sarah checked. Yes, that was the Slayer. She stood, hiding her pistol again.

“Chuck went to help a convulsing guy,” Caridad told her, pointing at an empty spot. “Right there. He told me to save the kids,” she added.

Sarah nodded. “Chuck would do that.”

“If I had stayed…” Caridad shook her head, then knelt down at the spot she had indicated. “The chemical is throwing off his scent.”

“Ah.” Had Fulcrum counted on that? Or was that just a coincidence? “We need to leave,” she told the Slayer. “The police is coming.”

“Alright. Out the back?”

“Through the basement,” Sarah told her. “Possible chemical attack? They’ll cordon it off right away.”

“Great.”

They ran back to the staff area, Caridad making it look like a jog. “Where’s your radio?” Sarah asked.

“One of the kids I was carrying ripped it off, and I couldn’t drop them to pick it up.”

Seriously? Well, Fulcrum wouldn’t have been able to plan that, at least. But if the police found it… well, they’d have to replace the network anyway, Fulcrum could have compromised it if they got Chuck.

She hit the radio again before they entered the basement. “Track Chuck’s watch.”

“Copy.”

“You can track his watch?” Caridad asked.

“There’s a homing beacon built in.”

“Why didn’t you track him right away?”

“It doesn’t work well within such a building,” Sarah told her. “I would have to get very close to find him inside here.”

“Ah.”

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 18th, 2008**

“Chuck’s beacon isn’t sending a signal,” Sarah heard Bane inform her as soon as she and Caridad entered the base.

Sarah nodded. She had to stay calm. Chuck needed her at her best. “They either destroyed the watch or have him in a shielded area.” Or both. That’s what she’d have done.

“Yes. We’ve got a copy of the surveillance records before the police sealed them. The convulsing man was a trap - tasered Chuck and dragged him off,” Bane went on as the footage started to play on the screen.

Had Fulcrum counted on Chuck rushing to help the man? Had they studied him so much? Or were they just expecting to get close to him like that because he was the assistant manager? “Did you get a picture of their car?”

“Yes, but it was probably stolen - the plates belong to a delivery service,” Bane replied.

“We need that van,” Caridad said. “If I can get the scent of the kidnappers, I can find them.”

The Slayer wasn’t really planning to search Los Angeles with her nose, was she? But if she knew the kidnappers’ scents, she could identify them, should they appear again. “Yes,” Sarah agreed.

“Alright. Let’s see where it pops up.”

And they could only hope that the kidnappers planned to use Chuck as leverage against Caridad and Vi. If they knew that Chuck was the Intersect, all would be lost.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 18th, 2008**

The van was where Orion had found it with a little - or a lot of - hacking: Properly parked inside a garage, the fees paid in advance. The odds that it was a trap were low - car thieves getting blown up tended to attract police attention Fulcrum wouldn’t want, especially with the ‘chemical attack’ reports still outnumbering the ‘chemical spill’ reports in the news. And they had checked for surveillance devices and ambushes.

Sitting in her own car, Sarah still eyed the vehicle very cautiously. Chuck’s kidnapping had shown that you couldn’t afford to underestimate Fulcrum. Something she wished the Slayers had learned without Chuck going missing. Or would learn - Sarah wasn’t sure whether the two Slayers had realised that they couldn’t just rush off as soon as they got the scent of the enemy.

“So… is it safe?” Grimes asked next to her

“I don’t sense anything,” Caridad said from the back.

“And no one is hiding in a car according to the pictures we took with the thermal thingie,” Vi added. “Let’s go before the trail grows cold. Colder.”

Sarah frowned. It made sense that both Slayers would be here, to pick up the enemy’s scent. And someone would have to keep guarding Ellie, which meant Casey in this case. And Bane had to stay in the Base, to handle the General. And to staff Wienerlicious, if it was needed to keep up appearances or to answer the police’s questions. She didn’t really mind being outnumbered by the Council, either - it was for Chuck, after all.

But she would have preferred Phil to Morgan. If only the older Watcher had been available instead of being off to Sunnydale for some ‘reading’ or other linked to a Slayer mission.

She pressed her lips together and focused on the mission, Chuck needed help. After another look around the garage - there were no cameras; one reason Fulcrum had dropped off the car here, she thought - and nodded. “Let’s go. But be careful.”

“Always!” Vi replied - but both Slayers were already sprinting towards the van.

“They are remarkably patient, given the circumstances,” Grimes offered, unasked, as they followed the two at a less superhuman pace.

Sarah nodded, though she was sure that this was temporary, due to Caridad feeling guilty about Chuck having been kidnapped ‘under our noses’. Still, she would take what she could get in this case.

By the time they reached the van, Caridad had already opened it - with more skill than Sarah had expected - and both Slayers were literally sniffing the interior.

“Chuck definitely was in here,” Caridad stated. “His smell is all over the back.”

“Is there any blood?” Sarah couldn’t see any, but she didn’t have supernatural senses.

“Doesn’t smell like it,” Vi replied as she opened the driver’s door and started to smell the seat. “Cheap aftershave,” she complained. “Between the chemical stench and this, I can barely make out the real scent.”

Was that planned, or just the result of a good spy using an aftershave appropriate to their cover? There was no way to tell. “‘Barely’?” Sarah asked.

“I’ve got their scent. Well, his scent.”

Caridad pushed her head over the seat’s backrest and nodded. “Male, yes.”

While they tried to pick up the scent of the other spies in the van, Sarah turned to Grimes. “Anything?”

“Err…” He looked up. “There’s no sign of magic, as far as I can tell.” He shrugged. “Unless they’ve got a really sneaky mage with them, that means there’s no magic involved.”

Sarah didn’t quite share the man’s estimate of his own skills, but the two Slayers backed him up, ‘not smelling any magic either’, as Caridad put it. It was good news, of a sort. If Fulcrum had access to such magic… “Can we track him?”

“Oh, yes. Once Phil’s back we can do a tracking ritual - we’ve got blood samples of Chuck.”

Once more, she pressed her lips together. The idea that you could be tracked by a spell like that… It might save Chuck’s life, but Sarah still had reservations about handing out samples of her own. Though she doubted that she’d have a choice once they were officially working for the Council. “Anything else? Discarded syringe? Cigarette stub? DNA samples?”

“Nothing,” Grimes told her.

“Not even a hair out of place here,” Caridad added. 

That was unfortunate. Fulcrum spies were professionals, but no one was perfect. 

Caridad and Vi left the van and started sniffing the ground. Like bloodhounds, Sarah thought - not that she would ever say that out loud.

“This way,” Caridad declared about a minute later.

The scent trail led them to an empty parking field on the same floor, about twenty yards down the line. “The trail ends here,” Vi said.

Sarah nodded. “We’ll need to get the records of the car parked here before.” A quick text informed Orion, and five minutes later, she received the records. “A rental,” she summed up. “One without a tracking device, though.”

“Ambush at the rental firm?” Caridad asked with a bright expression.

“There are dozens of locations in Los Angeles alone where they can return the car,” Sarah told the Slayer. They’d have to get very lucky to catch the kidnappers - or one of them - like that.

And Sarah didn’t think their recent string of bad luck had ended yet.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 18th, 2008**

“Can you find him? Or do we need more of his stuff? If we do, just say the word, and I’ll get more. Won’t take long.”

Sarah rolled her eyes - though with her back to Caridad. The Slayer had been pestering Brown-Smythe almost non-stop since the Watcher had returned. She must be feeling really guilty for letting Chuck be kidnapped under her watch.

Not entirely unjustified, of course, in Sarah’s decidedly unbiased opinion. If Caridad had stayed with Chuck, Fulcrum wouldn’t have managed to take him. And the kids she had evacuated would have been fine. Probably. 

She sighed. That had been so Chuck. Brave, selfless, and without thinking things through.

“I do think that we have all the materials we need, so you can refrain from pilfering more of Chuck’s belongings, dear,” the Watcher replied - as patiently, or at least appearing so, as he had the first time Caridad had asked.

“Then what’s the hold-up?” the Slayer demanded, before flinching. “Sorry, I mean…” She shrugged, lips pressed together.

“I’m not as talented in the arts as others,” Brown-Smythe replied, “so I have to compensate with thorough preparations.”

“It’s still faster than calling Willow,” Grimes added without looking up from where he was drawing chalk lines on the base’s floor.

“Not to mention that Miss Rosenberg might not be available - as distressing as Chuck’s kidnapping is, it’s unlikely to be the sole current crisis,” the older Watcher replied. “Hand me the white candles, please.”

The Slayer moved so quickly, Sarah almost expected to hear a sonic boom. She could understand the feeling, of course - she hated waiting, helplessly, uselessly, while others worked to rescue Chuck.

She had to be calm, though, and couldn’t let her anxiety show. She was in charge, after all, with Casey still guarding Ellie and Devon. Well, there was Bane, but the other spy understood things. At least as far as the spy side was concerned - she was eyeing the growing circle on the floor with a guarded expression.

“It’s just a spell,” Sarah told her.

“I know.”

Sarah nodded. She knew what the other spy was thinking. “That’s part of the reason for the secrecy,” she told her. “Imagine if the agency and our enemies used magic.”

“Who says they don’t?” Bane shot back. “There are a lot of secret projects, and I can’t see the Russians or the Chinese not taking such an opportunity.”

“They learned their lesson after a few near-apocalypses in the Cold War,” Vi suddenly cut in from behind them. 

Sarah managed not to jerk, but Bane gasped. The Slayer had snuck up on them, perhaps even without meaning to, Sarah knew.

“That the leaders were more than a little paranoid helped, of course - they didn’t trust witches to begin with,” Vi went on. “So, there’s a sort of gentlemen’s agreement about these sort of things. It’s not perfect but works well enough. Until it doesn’t, and we have to clean up another cabal or two.”

“How reassuring,” Bane said in a flat voice.

“Don’t worry - the Council got the big stuff handled.” Vi beamed at them.

Sarah did worry, though. But right now, Chuck was far more important. They had to find him - as quickly as possible. Who knew what Fulcrum was doing to him?

*****

**Unknown Location, Unknown Time and Date**

_They were torturing Sarah. She had surrendered after they had threatened to kill him, and now they were torturing her. And it was all his fault. If he hadn’t been kidnapped, if he hadn’t been the Intersect, she would have been safe._

_And he couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t even activate the Intersect to make them stop hurting her. He was useless. Worse than useless. He was..._

Chuck woke up with a gasp. A nightmare. Just a nightmare. A familiar one, too. He sighed, then realised that it was far too dark for his room, and that he couldn’t move. 

Then he remembered. The chemical attack. The man convulsing. The taser.

Oh my Gosh! He had been kidnapped. By Fulcrum. They knew he was the Intersect! No!

He pulled on his bounds, trying to break them, but to no avail. Of course they would be prepared for that. Stupid. And they had taken his watch, so his friends wouldn’t be able to locate him.

He had to calm down. He didn’t know if they knew he was the Intersect. They could have kidnapped him merely to extort the Slayers. Which wasn’t really any better, though. In fact, that would be quite close to his nightmare.

No. This wouldn’t happen. He just had to stay calm. The others would save him. He just had to hold out until they came. He could do that. It wasn’t as if he had anything else to do. Or could do anything but wait,

In the darkness. While tied to a bed. At least it was a bed, and not some metal slab with a laser pointed at him. Or a rack. Or…

He _really_ had to calm down and stop letting his imagination run wild. What was the special training POWs were supposed to go through? Before they became POWs, of course. Improvise, adapt, overcome? No, those were the marines. 

Stay calm. That was the first thing. Panicking wouldn’t help.

Suddenly, lights blinded him, and he shrieked.

“Good evening, Mr Bartowski.”

Chuck blinked, as his eyes started to adjust. That was a man’s voice. Smooth, but… something else, too. “Uh…”

“How eloquent.” He heard the man chuckle.

His vision cleared and he saw a middle-aged man, slim, sitting in a chair about two yards away from his bed. They were in a rather bare room - just his bed, the chair, and… was that a bucket in the corner? Raw concrete, like a basement. Or a bunker. Or some ugly architectural trend.

“Uh… who are you?” Chuck asked bad guys liked to talk, right?

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

He blinked again. What?

The man laughed. “I always wanted to say that.”

Oh God - he had been kidnapped by a crazy spy. That was bad.

Chuck swallowed. “Uh… why did you kidnap me? If you need some tech support, there are much easier ways to get help. Our rates are very reasonable.”

The man laughed again. “You do not disappoint - I love a man with a sense of humour.” Suddenly, he grew serious. Dead serious - Chuck shivered at the man’s expression. “It’s a decent attempt at keeping your cover, but entirely pointless, Mr Bartowski. We know exactly who you are. And what has been done to you.”

Chuck paled. They knew. They knew he was the Intersect!

*****


	35. The Fallout Part 4

**Unknown Location, Unknown Time and Date**

The spy from Fulcrum grinned broadly, showing pearly-white teeth. ”Yes, Mr Bartowski, we know about Sunnydale. And the Initiative.”

“What?” Chuck blinked, then had to struggle not to sigh with relief. They didn’t know about the Intersect! Then he gasped. But they knew about the supernatural!

“Yes. We know that the CIA used your hometown to conduct top-secret research into human augmentations.”

Oh. They didn’t know, then. “What? You think I’m a cyborg? I’m not! I’m a normal human being!”

“Oh, no, we don’t think that you were augmented - you left Sunnydale before the project’s second phase started, and your life afterwards is well documented. However...” The man’s grin turned noticeably evil, in Chuck’s opinion. “...it is interesting that you would know what kind of augmentations a top-secret research project developed.”

“What?” Chuck gasped. “Everyone knows what augmentation means - did you never play Cyberpunk?” Well… not everyone played that role playing game, Chuck realised. Or read the novels. The spy looked a little too old, anyway, to have been a teenager in the 80s or 90s.

The man frowned for a moment, then chuckled. “You do try to play the harmless nerd, I’ll grant you that. But as I said - we know the truth. And so do you. You weren’t a test subject - but you are a friend of the test subjects.”

He must mean the Scoobies. “Test subjects?” Chuck tried to sound ignorant.

Judging by the man’s scoff, he failed. “You’re not a very good liar, Mr Bartowski. You’re a friend of both the first and second generation of test subjects.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He was honestly confused - the Initiative had been shut down in 2000. What did the man mean, ‘second generation’?

“Really? Your friends Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane were the first generation test subjects. The survivors of the first generation, to be exact - the project leader claimed their failures as ‘combat casualties’, but it’s obvious that with something as cutting edge as cybernetics, it’ll take a lot of experiments and failures until you’ve refined the process to get actual results. The second generation produced over a dozen viable results in 2003.”

The man actually thought that Walsh’s human experiments were sane? Chuck didn’t have to fake his horrified expression.

“Really? Don’t give me that look. Did you never wonder why only two of the first group of test subjects survived? Why so many people disappeared in Sunnydale? Oh, wait, you left before that wave of missing persons started. Were you warned in advance, perhaps?”

What? Oh. Fulcrum thought that the death rate in Sunnydale had spiked after the Mayor’s death. They didn’t know that this had been normal but kept hidden by Richard Wilkins. “I left after graduating high school so I could go to college,” he said.

“A wise decision, in hindsight.” The spy laughed. “Although the CIA had to pull strings when you were at Stanford - the main office almost recruited you, did you know? But that would have threatened the secrecy of the project. Oh!” He grinned again. “You did know. At least, you found out at some point in the past.”

Chuck berated himself for failing to hide his reaction. He really wasn’t a good liar.

“Were you planning to become a computer expert working for the project? Before it was destroyed in that ‘tragic sinkhole incident’ and all records were lost.”

If Chuck weren’t tied up and at the mercy of a ruthless, brutal enemy spy, it would almost be amusing to see how a paranoid secret agent interpreted the information available about Sunnydale. As it was, though… “If you know all that, why did you kidnap me? I was never involved with any secret project in Sunnydale!”

“But you knew about the project. And the surviving test subjects trust you. Were you one of their handlers? Like your friend, Mr Grimes?”

“Handlers?”

“The people commanding the test subjects. We’ve seen them at work. Is that why all surviving test subjects are female? Are they easier to control? We thought it was a physical reason - perhaps women could adapt better to cybernetics than men.”

The man was crazy. “I’m not a handler or whatever you call it!”

“No, you aren’t.” The Fulcrum agent stood and stepped closer, leaning forward until his face was almost directly above Chucks. “But do you know _what_ you are?”

He couldn’t resist: “What?”

“You are the key to controlling the test subjects.”

“What? Do you think you can use me as a hostage to order them around?” That was… well, not completely stupid, but still stupid.

“Of course not,” the man told him. “No matter the test subjects’ feelings, it’s a CIA operation. If we tried to use you as leverage, then you’d suffer an accident - probably in a way that frames us for it. Everyone mourns the tragic loss of a friend, the handlers in their experience help the test subjects cope with it - and strengthen their ties to them as a result.”

Chuck gaped at him. He thought that the CIA would go as far? That was… Uh. Dad had feared they’d use Ellie and Chuck to force him to obey them. That was, probably, not as far-fetched as Chuck would like.

“Ah! You’ve realised that I’m telling the truth, hm? You’re not as dumb and naive as you look, Mr Bartowski.”

Hey! He was a spy! He wasn’t that naive. Just a little too much. “But if you don’t want to use me as leverage, how am I ‘the key to controlling the test subjects’?” If his wrists weren’t tied to the bed, he’d have made air-quotes.

“Simple. Now that we know about you, you’ve become a liability. The CIA team will realise that. Unless you manage to suborn the test subjects for us and sabotage this operation, you will suffer an accident.” The spy shook his head, sighing with mock-sympathy. “You don’t really think people who conduct experiments with humans are nice people, do you? I guess they used you as some emotional anchor for the test subjects. Something to ground them so they don’t go crazy. But now that we know about you, you’ve outlived your usefulness.”

“That’s crazy!” Chuck protested. It was. But he couldn’t help wondering what the CIA would have done if they had managed to reconstruct the Intersect and the Council hadn’t gone to bat for Chuck.

“Is it?” The man laughed again. “You say so, but you’re doubting. Wondering. Worrying.”

Well, that was true. Kind of. Chuck still worried far more about Fulcrum’s plans than the CIA’s hypothetical treatment of a non-Council-affiliated Chuck. “But why would I help you? I’d be a liability for you as well, wouldn’t I?” Wait… that wasn’t something he should’ve pointed out.

The man’s grin grew wider. “Oh, you are learning. But don’t worry - you will have a very good reason to help us, and we’ll have a very good reason to trust you.”

Now Chuck was worrying. A lot. “I don’t suppose you’re talking about a very generous financial offer?”

“That would usually be our preferred approach, but… you don’t seem to be the greedy type.” The man from Fulcrum sighed with another expression of mock-sympathy. “Nor do you look like the kind of person who’d sell out their friends.”

“That’s normally the hallmark of a trustworthy person,” Chuck pointed out.

“Indeed. But not the sort of trustworthy we need. Do you know the saying ‘trust, but verify’?”

Uh. That really didn’t sound good. Chuck grimaced.

“Oh, you do, don’t you?” The man patted his cheek. “Let’s just say once we’re done, your life will be in our hands.”

His life would be...? Oh, no! “You’ll implant a bomb in my head?” A cranial bomb? The guy claimed he had never heard of cyberpunk!

“A bomb in your head? Please. The CIA would detect that quickly. No, no - we like to be a little more subtle than that.”

“A poison in a shell that will start to degrade without the proper counter-agent taken regularly?” 

The man blinked, looking actually surprised. “No, but that’s a very interesting idea. Is this part of the current project?” He suddenly frowned. “Has that been done to you?”

“What? No!” Chuck shook his head frantically. If they thought he was already compromised like that, they’d cut their losses and kill him. “It’s from a book I read. Years ago.”

“Ah. A pity.” The man shrugged. “No, as I said, we prefer to be more subtle. We’ll implant something in your _mind_ , Mr Bartowski.”

Chuck blinked. “You said you wouldn’t implant a… Oh. You said, ‘mind’, not ‘brain’.” He gasped. “You’re talking brainwashing me! Some… some… hypnotic suggestion with a trigger.”

The spy seemed almost proud of him. “A little reassurance, so to speak. My group doesn’t have access to cybernetic augmentation, but we’re quite advanced when it comes to manipulating the human mind.”

That was really, really bad. Chuck started to hyperventilate. This was…

This was probably related to the Intersect!

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 18th, 2008**

Sarah couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. It was silly - this was going to save Chuck! - but she had expected the locator spell Brown-Smythe was casting to be a bit more… impressive. All the older man was doing was burning a few herbs, staring into a bowl of water and chanting under his breath. Replace the bowl with a crystal ball, and he could’ve worked as a fortune-teller at any medieval fair.

Perhaps she had been spoilt by having seen Willow Rosenberg perform magic. The witch was obviously one of the most powerful magic-users the Council had access to. The number of times Grimes and Brown-Smythe said ‘I’m not Willow/Miss Rosenberg, but…’ only confirmed that.

Suddenly, the Watcher leaned back, sighing and interrupting her thoughts. “I’ve found him.”

He’d found Chuck! Sarah barely managed not to jump up. The Slayers did, though, Caridad all but yelling: “You did? Where is he?”

“That’s a little harder to determine,” the older man told her. “He’s to the South of us, but I’ll need a map to narrow the location down.”

“Here!” Bane handed him a printed map before Sarah could bring up a map on the screen.

“Thank you, dear.”

“Thank you,” Sarah forced herself to say. The British Watcher apparently preferred paper to screens. She should’ve anticipated that herself.

Bane smiled back, acting pleased. Even more so, when Grimes hugged her.

Sarah sighed and forced herself to calm down as Brown-Smythe started to go over the map. After a minute without any comment, she offered: “I can bring up satellite images.”

“No need. I’ve found it. It’s here!” The Watcher pointed at a spot just north of San Diego. “In… Bird Rock.”

“Let’s go!” Caridad was halfway to the exit. “I’ll drive!”

“No, I’ll do it!” Vi, hot on the other Slayer’s heels, yelled.

“Stop!” Sarah found herself saying. “We can’t charge off unprepared.”

“Indeed,” Brown-Smythe agreed. “Chuck wasn’t in any immediate danger, nor did he show any signs of having been tortured when I scryed on him. Our chances to rescue him unharmed will be much improved if we take the time to come up with a plan.”

Caridad frowned, but Vi nodded - albeit a little reluctantly, in Sarah’s opinion. “Sure. Be all reasonable about it.” The Slayer’s joke felt a little forced, too, but as long as they two didn’t dash off…

Bane had brought up the satellite images of the area in question, making Sarah thank her again. 

“Looks like they set up well. There’s a small warehouse as a cover for deliveries at any time - and for the security,” the other spy commented.

Sarah nodded. “And it’s connected to the office building. They might even have a legitimate shipping business going.”

“Uh. Do you mean they’ll have employees who don’t know anything about Fulcrum?” Grimes asked.

“It’s possible,” Sarah told him.

“So, uh, don’t maim everyone you find,” Grimes told the Slayers.

Sarah wasn’t about to risk Chuck on the off-chance that a security guard wasn’t working for Fulcrum, but there was no need to mention that. She focused on the images instead. There was a tall fence. Probably guards with dogs, too. And the warehouse and office building would have far better security than usual of course - at least in the secret parts. “There’s no time to go in disguised as a legitimate delivery,” she said. It would take too long to find the suppliers and set up something. “And the buildings are small enough to make insertion from the air unfeasible,” she added. 

“No for us!” Vi interjected. “We can parachute in, easy!”

“Yes,” Caridad agreed, nodding eagerly.

“And deal with any traps on the roof?” Sarah asked.

“Err… yes?” Vi tried.

But Brown-Smythe was shaking his head. “I think Sarah has the right of it. We might have to go through the fence, or over it.”

“Without attracting attention,” Bane added.

“And going up against spies who might expect Slayers,” Sarah said.

“But Phil’s spell worked!” Caridad protested. “That means they don’t have magical defences!”

“It just means that they aren’t protected against scrying,” Brown-Smythe pointed out.

“If they saw you hunting, they might expect you to jump the fences,” Sarah added. “That means the real defences will be at the building.” And Fulcrum would have set up a lot of nasty defences. Probably mines - they would stop Slayers, too. Jus rushing in through or over the fence wouldn’t work. And Fulcrum would have built underground, so the sewers would be covered as well. Quite tricky.

She raised her eyebrows, then moved the satellite images a little. “I think I found a way to enter.”

*****

**California, Bird Rock, Aston Imports & Exports Compound, February 18th, 2008**

Chuck had to escape. Before the agents of Fulcrum turned him into a Manchurian spy. Or fried his brain when whatever they used hit the Intersect in his mind and overloaded his mental capacity, or something. Of course, that was preferable to being turned into an enemy spy and stabbing his friends in the back. And betraying Sarah…

He had to escape! 

But he had spent hours trying to escape, after the Fulcrum spy had finally left him, without having any success. Or even a feasible idea. He couldn’t get at the locks of the cuffs holding him no matter how he twisted, and breaking them was utterly impossible - he had tried. And no one had answered his questions and demands - not even when he had asked to go to the bathroom - so he hadn’t even been able to attempt turning a Fulcrum spy. 

Not that hadn’t been a ridiculous plan to begin with, but he was desperate. The only silver lining was that he hadn’t actually needed to go to the bathroom, or he’d have embarrassed himself.

Small mercies, but he didn’t have anything else to cling to. He had to escape. He looked around again, but the room was still dark. Pitch black, actually. Was this already a part of their brainwashing operation? Sensory deprivation? Limited to his eyes? Psychological warfare to weaken his resolve?

If the goal was to make him more desperate, then it was working. He needed to escape. Before he got turned into a danger to his friends and loved ones. Just like a vampire. Worse, though - his friends and family knew how to handle vampires. He wouldn’t be able to fool them. But a mindwiped Chuck? They’d check for magic, maybe. But they wouldn’t find implanted hypnotic suggestions.

He really needed…

A sudden flash of light blinded him, and he jerked on his bindings tying to shield his hurting eyes. No! They were coming for him!

By the time he stopped blinking rapidly and could see again, two tall men were already at his side. 

“Uh… did you finally decide to let me use the toilet?” he asked.

A snort was the only answer he got as the two men started to push the bed towards the door. Apparently, they wouldn’t bother untying him for the transfer to the mindwipe dungeon. Damn. Another hope shattered. Did they suspect he was more dangerous than he appeared? Or was this standard procedure, no matter the victim?

“Guys? I really need to go to the toilet.” He wasn’t entirely lying. “You don’t want me to wet myself when you tinker with my brain, do you?”

Another snort. “They usually piss themselves anyway,” the man on his right side said, chuckling.

Chuck froze. They had done this before. Stupid. Of course they had - they wouldn’t be doing this to test it on him. Was that how they had managed to infiltrate the CIA so thoroughly? Turning innocent people traitor? Anyone could be a victim, even people Chuck and his friends had killed!

Oh my God!

That was… if it was true. No. He tried to force himself to calm down. He couldn’t dwell on that now. He had to escape.

The pushed him through a hallway with bare concrete walls. It didn’t look even half as nice as The Castle. But it carried that ‘dungeon’ vibe pretty well.

They passed two doors - sturdy metal ones that looked as if they could hold a vampire prisoner - until they stopped in front of a third. The goon on Chuck’s other side knocked on it. Once, twice, three times.

The door was opened by a man in a white lab coat. “Wheel him in,” the man told the goons. “He hasn’t eaten, has he?”

“No,” the second thug answered.

“Good. We wouldn’t want to lose another one choking on their own vomit, would we?” The man laughed, though Chuck couldn’t see how that was supposed to be funny.

“Emery!” Chuck heard a sharp voice from inside the room. Accented.

The man in the lab coat flinched and stepped to the side. “Sorry, Professor.”

Chuckling, the two tall men pushed Chuck into the room. He craned his neck, looking around, and flinched himself. It looked far more like a surgery room than a dungeon. And it had a lot of machines standing around, with attached computers. But he focused on the table with cuffs and straps in the centre, next to a woman in a lab coat, middle-aged…

Chuck flashed.

He saw dead people. An asylum in Russia, burned down in 2004. Faked therapies. Coroner reports about victims being dead before the fire reached them. Suspicions of experiments. Vivisection. Pictures and videos of people drooling on themselves next to the same people looking sharp and alert. Agents. And photos of the woman in the lab coat.

Professor Irina Petrova. Supposedly dead in the fire that destroyed her asylum.

Only she wasn’t dead - she was working for Fulcrum. 

And she was about to mess with his mind.

He started to hyperventilate. Until he realised that in order to strap him down on the operating table - or whatever you called the table for a brainwashing operation - they would have to untie him.

That was his chance.

*****

**California, Bird Rock, Outside Aston Imports & Exports Compound, February 18th, 2008**

“You plan to shoot a grappling hook with a line from the apartment building here to the target building and use it to reach the roof? Are you certain that you’re not a Slayer?” Brown-Smythe Looked rather nonplussed, Sarah noticed.

“That’s a great idea!”

“Hell, yeah!” 

As expected, the two actual Slayers were in full agreement with her plan.

Even Bane looked a bit doubtful, but then, she was probably used to sleeping her way into a compound. Sarah shook her head - this wasn’t the time to speculate about Bane. She pointed at the building ahead and below them. “This is the quickest and safest method to reach the building.”

“If you’re a Navy Seal,” Grimes remarked. “Or a spy,” he added as Sarah caught him glancing at Bane. “But what will Phil and I do? If we don’t want to end up splattered against the wall?”

“We’ll carry you!” Caridad announced. “Easy!”

“Yes,” Vi added, nodding emphatically.

“We need at least one to stay back as a lookout,” Sarah said. She’d have preferred Casey as overwatch with a sniper rifle, but he was guarding Ellie and Devon. And most of the fighting would happen inside, anyway, or so she expected, so a sniper would be of limited use. Of course, Casey could have killed the guards outside, then joined them inside… She sighed. You fought a battle with the force you had, not the one you wished you had.

“I think I shall remain here in the car, then,” Phil said. “I suspect I would be of limited use in a firefight.”

“But you’re great with a crossbow!” Caridad protested.

“Which isn’t the best weapon to use in a fight against humans armed with guns,” the Watcher retorted.

“I told you to buy a repeating crossbow!” Caridad said, pouting.

“That’s not the point, my dear.”

“You just said it was!”

“I was merely pointing out a fallacy in your argument. No, really, I’ll be more useful for this rescue if I am staying behind so you can focus on saving young Mr Bartowski,” Brown-Smythe said in a tone that didn’t leave any room for disagreement.

Grimes looked a little taken aback himself, Sarah noted. But Chuck’s friend didn’t say anything, and they were wasting time. “Let’s go,” Sarah said. 

Breaking into the apartment building was child’s play - the house had a very basic security system. Just sophisticated enough so the insurance companies would raise their rates, Sarah suspected. But the access to the roof was different.

She smiled as she spotted the hidden camera that wasn’t connected to the apartment building’s network and therefore wasn’t under Orion’s control. Fulcrum hadn’t missed the weakness the neighbouring buildings presented in their security. She disabled the camera by looping its feed, then nodded to the rest of the group waiting in the staircase behind her. “It’s safe now.”

They followed her on the roof, crouching as they approached the edge so they wouldn’t be visible from below.

Sarah pulled out the grappling hook launcher. The distance was a little long, but still within the device’s range. “Check if the guards react,” she told the Slayers. The grapnel was padded to avoid making loud noises, but nothing was perfect. As the two dropped on the ground and crawled to the edge, she crouched and aimed carefully, then fired. The hook flew in a graceful arc towards the building below them, landing on the roof.

“No reaction,” Caridad said.

Sarah carefully tugged on the line until the hook had grabbed on the railing, then secured her end before addressing the group. “I’ll go first, to check for alarms and traps. Then Caridad, then Kirsten, and Vi with Morgan once we’re on the roof.”

“Alright.”

To her surprise, none of them protested. She wasn’t about to question her good fortune and waste more time. Taking a deep breath, she connected her harness to the line, checked the friction hitch, then crawled to the edge of the roof and pushed off.

The angle of descent was steeper than she liked, so she had to brake almost constantly, but she reached the other roof without trouble.

Of course, the real work started there. Fulcrum hadn’t skimped on security on their own roof. Sarah pressed her lips together as she studied the various alerts she could spot.

This would take her some time to deal with. Time Chuck might not have.

She pushed the thought away, gritting her teeth, and started to work. They couldn’t help Chuck at all if they were discovered before they reached him. And Brown-Smythe had said Chuck was safe and unharmed when he had scryed him.

She still couldn’t help feeling anxious.

*****

The two men didn’t seem to take chances. One grabbed Chuck’s left arm before the other undid the strap holding it down. No leverage. And his other arm was still tied down.

“Guys! You don’t need to do this! We can still work something out! Just let me go, and I’ll forget everything! You don’t need to mind-wipe me! I need my brain working, not leaking out of my ears!” Chuck babbled.

Both men snorted in response, and Petrova laughed - obviously, someone who enjoyed her work. 

One of the thugs held on to Chuck’s left arm while the other grabbed his right arm. Chuck tensed, but… he was still strapped to the bed. Then they pulled his upper body forward and cuffed his wrists together behind his back. Damn.

But they weren’t as careful as they freed his legs. One undid the straps while the other held on to Chuck’s upper arm. As soon as both his legs were free, Chuck jackknifed, twisting a little so he hit the man next to him with both his feet in the head with a Capoeira move.

The man flew back with a curse and Chuck rolled over and off the bed, landing in a crouch before jumping forward to headbutt the other man, who was just turning to face him. Both of them went down, Chuck headbutting the man again - hard enough so the back of the man’s head hit the floor, hard enough to knock him out. That hadn’t done Chuck any favours either - the thug’s head was hard. As he blinked, hissing at the pain in his forehead, the other thug recovered. Chuck saw the man’s hand go for his gun and...

“Don’t kill him! We need him alive!” Petrova yelled.

Cursing, the brute reholstered the gun and moved to grapple. But that had given Chuck enough time to recover and jump to his feet. As the man rounded the bed, Chuck let himself fall down on it, then turned on his back, once more lashing out with his legs.

The thug ducked underneath them, and Chuck slid off the bed, taking up a wide stance. He tugged on the cuffs, but they didn’t give.

There came the thug again, charging. Chuck managed to dodge the man, whirling like a bullfighter.

But his enemy was quick - far too quick for a man his size - and came at him again. Chuck hopped on the bed and rolled over it again, then mule-kicked it into the other man’s path. The spy’s speed worked against him - he didn’t manage to dodge and stumbled over it, landing on the floor.

Chuck’s foot hit his head before he could recover, kicking his teeth in. As the man roared with pain, Chuck hit him again and again. After the third kick, the man didn’t move anymore. Chuck whirled just in time to dodge a clumsy swipe with a pipe from the man in the labcoat. A judo-throw sent the overbalanced man into the wall, head-first.

That left… Petrova, who was already at the door. “Help! The prisoner is escaping! Help!” she screamed as she fled.

Crap. Chuck clenched his teeth and knelt down with his back to the first thug. One of them had to have the key to his cuffs.

Patting them down with his hands cuffed to his back was awkward, but Chuck managed to find the keys. He could already hear reinforcements arrive, though, and Petrova yelling about shooting him in the legs.

That was bad. Very bad. But Chuck had his hands free - and the thug’s guns. He took cover behind one of the computers - it wouldn’t stop any bullets, but they couldn’t just shoot him, either. Not if they couldn’t kill him.

He was ready to shoot the first person through the door, but instead of an enemy spy, a small object flew inside - a grenade! Chuck threw himself down and covered his head with his arms, eyes closed.

The grenade went off, the blast toppling the computer tower on to him in addition to knocking the breath out of him. He wasn’t shredded by shrapnel, though. Flashbang, he realised. That meant they would be coming… Here they came!

He managed to shoot the first person through the door despite still recovering from the shock, putting two shots into the man’s chest before he noticed that they were wearing vests. But his next shot hit the man’s head, and the spy went down.

Two more had jumped in behind him, though, spreading out to flank him. Chuck didn’t need to take them alive, though, and shot the left one as he took cover behind the bed, hitting him in the arm and shoulder.

Yelling, the man dropped his weapon, but the thug on the right side was now shooting at Chuck, and almost hit him before Chuck managed to change his position with a combat roll that took him behind the mindwiping machine. Surely, they would be loath to damage that?

The sound of bullets peppering the case told him he was wrong. And more spies were entering. It wouldn’t be long before they flanked him in his new spot - and he couldn’t move, or he’d get shot.

Damn.

He had to do something, and fast. But exposing himself was out. So… There was a fire extinguisher in the corner behind him. One meant to put out computers and other electronics on fire with carbon dioxide. Which was stored under pressure.

He grabbed the extinguisher and lobbed it over the console with a grunt, then rose to shoot it before it landed.

It didn’t explode, but he managed to perforate it, and the extinguisher started to shoot around, driven by the leaking gas.

And while the enemy spies were distracted, Chuck moved. He jumped over the console, pushing off, and shooting the thug on the right before flipping over and landing on the ground. Two more shots put down the other thug. That left one more, plus however many in the hallway.

Chuck turned to take care of the last thug in the room. Then the extinguisher smashed into his leg, knocking him down. 

He managed to turn his fall into a roll forward, but when he came up in a crouch, the leg that had been hit flared up with pain and collapsed under him. This time, he fell flat on his side, screaming with pain.

It saved his life, though, since the shots from the remaining thug passed over Chuck’s head as he fell. Before the man could adjust his aim, Chuck shot him twice - one bullet hitting the man’s vest, the other hitting his forehead.

He swung around - hissing a the pain that caused in his leg - and fired blindly at the doorway; he had to keep Fulcrum’s remaining men from storming the room. Long enough so he could magically heal his leg and dig a tunnel to escape, he added with a snort.

If the floor were steel, he might rig an electricity trap. But the floor was concrete outside, and some smooth plastic inside. Probably to better wash off the leaking blood and brain from test subjects, he thought with more gallows humour.

Then he remembered Petrova’s file and winced - that was probably not an exaggeration. 

His gun clicked empty, but there were plenty of weapons around now - what with half a dozen thugs no longer needing them. Chuck grabbed another and fired a few more bullets, rifling through the dead man’s pockets for spare magazines.

Why hadn’t the agents outside thrown another flashbang inside? Chuck would have done so in their place. Probably a couple, to make sure he was down.

Wait… were those shots? His eyes widened. Yes, that was gunfire outside. And not aimed at him. Someone was fighting Fulcrum! His friends were coming! He was saved!

Well, provided he could survive until the arrived - Petrova struck him as the type to go ‘if I can’t have it, none shall’ and burn down the building before fleeing. That was what she must have done in the asylum.

He had to get out of here!

He pushed himself up and started to crawl towards the wall next to the door. If he managed to close the door… but it was on the other side, and to cross the open doorway while he couldn’t walk, much less run or jump would be suicide.

Heck, just crawling while dragging his hurt leg was almost too much. He had definitely broken a bone, perhaps two.

He snorted without any humour - there would be another cover story about his clumsiness or kinkiness coming up. Provided he survived this, of course.

Which wouldn’t be a bad price to pay, all things considered. Surviving, that is.

Close to the wall, he heard voices from the comm of the dead guy next to him.

“We need to move - the others can’t hold them.”

“We can’t, or the spy inside will get us in the back.”

“Idiots didn’t notice he was a pro.”

He gasped. They thought he was a real spy! His cover was blown! He had to stop them from getting away. Them and Petrova. Somehow.

But he couldn’t walk or run - he could only crawl.

Chuck clenched his teeth and wished he hadn’t tried to be clever with that stupid fire extinguisher.

*****

“Cover me!”

Caridad, screaming like a banshee, dashed around the corner - jumping high as if she were in one of Chuck’s video games.

Sarah followed, leading with her submachine gun. The Slayer was literally bouncing off the walls as she sped towards the two Fulcrum agents holding the intersection ahead of them. Sarah’s three-round burst took out the one on the right. She shifted aim, pressing herself against the wall, but it wasn’t needed - Caridad had already taken out the other one. Without killing him.

Sarah suppressed the small pang of envy and pushed forward. “Which direction?” she asked. 

The Slayer sniffed the air, then dashed left. “Downstairs!” she yelled, already outpacing Sarah again. They needed to work on teamwork, she noted, as she tapped her radio. “We’re moving towards the northern stairs.”

“Copy,” Bane replied. “We’ve secured the elevator. Moving to the southern staircase.”

That would trap anyone in the basement between two teams with one Slayer and one spy, each. And Grimes with Bane’s team.

She heard more gunfire ahead, but before she could round the next corner, Caridad reported: “Entrance clear!”

“Don’t go downstairs!” Sarah snapped, approaching her.

“What? But Chuck’s down there!”

“And the stairs are likely trapped,” she retorted. This was a major Fulcrum base, after all. And there had been traps on the roof.

“More traps? Inside their own building?” Caridad blinked. “Would they really do that?”

Sarah looked at her. “Our base’s trapped too.”

“What? It’s trapped? I’ve been working in a base rigged to blow?”

“Yes,” Sarah replied, studying the stairs.

“I didn’t smell anything, though! And I passed through dozens of times!”

“Sealed explosives.”

“To hide them from a Slayer?

“No. From sniffer dogs.” Having your base exposed because of a bomb threat in the area, and the police dogs searching the bomb noticing your explosives was embarrassing.

“Oh.”

There. That fuse box was out of place to be easily reached - but perfectly placed to clear the entire flight of stairs. And there wasn’t time to defuse it properly. Not after they had been discovered.

Sarah pulled out a grenade. “Take cover.”

*****

An explosion? Chuck tensed. Had they rigged the entire base to blow?

“Did you get them?” someone asked on the enemy comm.

“Can’t tell. But there are too many of them - they overran topside in a minute. We can’t hold them back! We need to evacuate!”

“We haven’t received orders to evacuate.”

“There’s no one left! The professor already left!”

“Damn!”

Damn! Chuck echoed the man in his mind. If Petrova escaped, his cover would be blown. Fulcrum would know he was a spy, even if they didn’t know about the Intersect. Although they were already interested in him for his ties to the Council, he suddenly realised.

“We need to move, Gary.”

“Gary?”

“Gary?”

“Damn! If they got him…”

“We need to...Urk.”

Chuck held his breath. Were both agents down? And were they the ones outside the room? Could he risk exposing himself?

“Chuck?”

He gasped again, That was Sarah! “Sarah!” he yelled. “I’m here!”

A moment later, she stood in the door. 

The relieved smile on her face was the most beautiful sight Chuck could imagine.

*****


	36. The Fallout Part 5

**California, Bird Rock, Aston Imports & Exports Compound, February 18th, 2008**

Sarah’s smile didn’t last, though. “Chuck! Are you hurt?”

“Just my leg,” he replied. “I think it’s broken.” It shouldn’t be - the extinguisher hadn’t hit him that hard.

“Let me check.” She knelt at his side.

“Just be carefuAHH!” His leg hurt like… damn, it hurt!

“Sorry. But yes, it’s broken.”

“I’ll carry him!” Caridad announced. When had she arrived? He had completely missed her.

“Let me splint the leg, first.” Sarah held up her hand before the Slayer could grab Chuck.

“Wait!” Chuck said. “Did you take down Petrova? Professor Irina Petrova. She’s the one doing the brainwashing for Fulcrum. She fled a few minutes ago - and she saw me take out those thugs here.”

“Oh.” Sarah understood at once what he meant while Caridad looked puzzled for a moment.

“We didn’t see any woman,” the Slayer said.

“We’re looking for a woman, Irina Petrova,” Sarah spoke into her radio. “Scientist. Stop her if you see her.”

Chuck didn’t hear the replies, but Sarah seemed satisfied as she pulled out a rod - a baton - and started to splint Chuck’s leg.

Which hurt again, but Chuck managed to grit his teeth this time and avoid whining. Until Caridad lifted him up and threw him over her shoulder. That _really_ hurt. “Please be careful,” he snapped.

“Sorry!” she replied. She did sound as if she was sorry, he noticed. And she did move carefully, without jarring him, as they left the room.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“It’s my fault you were kidnapped,” she replied.

“No!” he retorted. “It was my own fault. If I had been a little more observant…” Or if the Intersect had kicked in.

“No, I should have been quicker with the kids,” Caridad insisted. “I should…” He felt her tense. A moment later, she was sprinting up the stairs, going all-out, with Sarah right behind them.

And Chuck was yelling with pain all the way.

They didn’t slow down until they had left the building and didn’t stop until they had cleared the fence and reached a side alley.

“What’s going on?” Chuck asked once he finally wasn’t bouncing around with a broken leg any more.

“They found bombs - the place is rigged to blow,” Sarah explained.

“Oh.” That was a very sobering thought. He looked around, “Where are the others?” he really needed a radio.

“They should be coming out… now,” Caridad told him.

There they were. Vi, with Morgan behind and Bane bringing up the rear.

Chuck relaxed. They had made it out before the bombs went off. Now they just had to clear the fence, and they could go through the hole Caridad had cut into the chain-links.

But before they reached the fence, the bombs went off. The three runners staggered, and Flames erupted behind them.

“Fire bomb. Probably rigged to look like an oil tank malfunction,” Sarah said. “Less attention from the cops.”

Chuck had heard that fire investigators were very hard to deceive, but this wasn’t the moment to mention that. Even though he was quite sure that the speed with which the fire spread to the entire building was not normal. “Did they soak the walls in gasoline?” he muttered.

“Probably inflammable insulation by design,” Sarah replied.

He had been joking, but… “They built a base that was extra-inflammable?”

“Fulcrum’s not the kind of organisation to value their agents over their secrecy.”

And wasn’t that a chilling thought? “And they know I’m not a normal guy, now.” He pressed his lips together. That was a disaster.

“Not if we find this Petrova,” Caridad said. “What does she look like?”

“Blonde, about forty, white lab coat, shoulder-length hair,” Chuck told her.

“Phil said she didn’t leave through the front or north side,” the Slayer reported. “That leaves the back and south side.” She bared her teeth. “We’re going hunting!”

Well, not Chuck. He wasn’t going to go anywhere for a while. Not with a broken leg.

But he was alive, and all his friends were all unhurt. And Fulcrum didn’t have leverage on them.

*****

**California, Bird Rock, February 18th, 2008**

“No trace of her,” Caridad reported - rather grumpily, Chuck noticed - half an hour later and about three miles away from the burning building. “She must have slipped out while we were rescuing you,” she stated the obvious.

Chuck took a deep breath - it wasn’t her fault. Having had to wait half an hour in the car with a broken leg made him a little cranky. And he had been the one to ask them to catch Petrova. 

“I’m really sorry - we should’ve been prepared for that,” she added.

“We didn’t have enough people to lock down the area and get Chuck out,” Sarah retorted.

“Yes. It never ends well if you try to overreach,” Morgan added. He was probably speaking from Call of Duty experience, but Chuck wasn’t about to ask.

“It’s OK,” he managed to say. It wasn’t OK, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. And he was glad they had prioritised saving him over killing Fulcrum. “They already thought I was the key to controlling you.” But now Fulcrum would assume that he was a ‘test subject’ as well.

“Really?” Caridad blinked at him.

“They drew their conclusions from incomplete data,” Chuck explained. “They knew about the Initiative, but thought it was a research project about cybernetic augmentation.” Phil looked a little lost, so he added: “Bionics.”

“Ah. That American TV series.” The Watcher nodded.

“Yes.”

“But how did they think you could control us?” Vi, standing outside the SUV and leaning against the open window, asked.

“They wanted to brainwash me into turning you traitor since I ‘obviously’ was your best friend,” Chuck told her.

“They wanted to turn you into a honeytrap?” Bane sounded a little too amused for Chuck’s ego.

“More like a friend trap, I think,” he said. He hoped they would put his annoyance down to the pain from his broken leg. Which really did hurt. “But can we go get my leg treated now?”

“And find a good cover story,” Caridad said.

“Easy,” Morgan said. “We’ll just say…”

“...that Chuck was trampled in the evacuation,” Sarah said with a glare.

“That’s what I was about to say, exactly!” Morgan claimed with a forced smile.

“Right,” Chuck deadpanned. “Hospital? What about painkillers? It’s safe now, right?”

“Safe enough,” Sarah agreed.

Phil and Caridad went back to the Watcher’s car while Chuck tried to get comfortable in the backbench of the CIA SUV.

“You know,” Bane said as she prepared to drive but had to let a police car pass, “I hope this trend of setting buildings on fire won’t catch on.”

Chuck froze for a moment. Did she know the truth about the Gonzàlez assassination? Did she suspect? “Yeah,” he said before the silence became noticeable. “Although burning down buildings sometimes is the only way to deal with some demon infestations, the authorities really don’t like it.”

Bane looked over her shoulder. “How many buildings did you burn down?”

“Not too many,” Morgan said. “And we always had a good reason. Good enough for Phil, at least, and you know how he is.”

“Ah.”

Chuck wondered if Bane knew Phil better than he had thought, but then Sarah finally gave him a painkiller, and he didn’t think at all for a while.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 19th, 2008**

“...and they planned to brainwash me into a traitor,” Chuck finished his explanation.

“I see. So Fulcrum kidnapped you because they thought you were connected to Miss Caridad’s organisation.” General Beckman frowned. “An entirely correct assumption, seeing as you do have close ties to that organisation.”

“No, they thought I was connected to a secret project which has nothing to do with the organisation Caridad belongs to,” Chuck corrected her while he refrained from trying to scratch his itching shin through the cast.

“Another secret project?” The general’s eyebrows rose.

“Yes. And I had nothing to do with it at all,” he explained. “They made a mistake. Well, two, actually. They mixed up the organisations and my importance.”

“And which organisation was behind this other secret project?”

“That’s classified, ma’am,” Chuck told her, wincing at her expression. “Classified by the government, not, uh, by Caridad’s organisation.”

“Really.”

He refrained from saying ‘yes, really’ and simply nodded.

“Yes, ma’am,” Bane agreed. “That’s what the information we gathered during the rescue operation points to.” Well, half-agreed. Like a real spy.

Perhaps they shouldn’t have informed her about the kidnapping, but with a chemical spill making the national news, they hadn’t had much of a choice but to tell the general.

“I see.” And she didn’t like it. At all. That was plain to see. “That means Mr Bartowski and his family are in greater danger than before.”

“Yes,” Chuck said through clenched teeth. He could defend himself - well, unless he was falling for ambushes and traps - but Ellie and Devon?

“We’ll have to assign them a protection detail,” Bane said. Chuck blinked, then stared at the spy.

“I believe so, yes,” the general said. 

“It might also explain Fulcrum’s interest in Gonzàlez. He might have been tasked with subverting Chuck and tried to betray them,” Bane went on.

Oh. Chuck blinked again.

That would… well, that would be really helpful with Dad’s plan. Until the CIA caught a Fulcrum member who knew the truth.

Damn.

There was something else, though. “Uh. That aside, what are we going to do about this brainwashing doctor of Fulcrum?” Chuck asked.

“A team is already investigating the compound in Bird Rock,” the general replied. “If they can turn loyal people into mind-controlled traitors, then that’s a serious game-changer.” She stared at him. “We need everything you can remember about it, and everything the Intersect can deduce.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Chuck wasn’t about to point out that someone who was mind-controlled wasn’t a traitor in the technical sense. Or something. The general looked mad, and he had the impression that she blamed him at least partially for this, even though it hadn’t been his fault. Well, not according to her information, at least.

But they already had enough trouble to deal with; they couldn’t afford more friction with the CIA.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 19th, 2008**

“So… what do we do now?” Chuck asked as everyone - with the exception of Morgan, who was with Bane to keep her busy - was assembled in his and Sarah’s living room. “The CIA is sending another team to protect Ellie and Devon.”

“Not an entire team,” Casey countered. “Two or three agents at most.”

“Uh. That seems a little… light?” Chuck wasn’t an expert, but he had read the files and handbooks, and a protection detail usually was composed of more people.

“They don’t have enough spies that have the clearance for this and can be trusted,” Casey said.

“Yes,” Sarah said. “They’ll be focusing on hunting down traitors in the agency, not protecting two civilians.”

“That really doesn’t fill me with confidence,” Chuck remarked.

“Good,” Casey commented with a sneer.

“We seem to be in a pickle,” Phil said. “Expediting your recruitment might be a solution - but while the Council does care about the families of their members, they’re not really set up to defend against secret agents. They would probably move your family to a safer place.”

Chuck grimaced at that. Ellie wouldn’t agree with that. Not at all. Going into hiding would’ve wrecked her wedding plans. Not to mention her career. Still… “So we’re about to meet two or three more spies we can’t trust with the truth. We’re going to be outnumbered now,” he said. Bane knew about the supernatural, but not about Orion - Chuck would have to make a chart to remember who knew what if this continued. Well, almost.

And joining the Council while needing so much help wasn’t exactly how Chuck had envisioned their new career.

“We’ll have to take down Fulcrum, then,” Sarah said, looking grim. “Before things go out of control.”

“More than they have already,” Casey commented.

Great. They would have to do what they had been trying to do for months.

Chuck wasn’t feeling very optimistic about this. “Uh, so how do we do this?”

“Simple,” Casey replied. “We’re using you as bait.”

“What?” Chuck blinked, That was…

“It’s either you or your family,” Casey went on.

Chuck shut his mouth.

“The CIA won’t let Chuck risk himself like that,” Sarah said.

“They don’t have a choice,” the NSA agent replied. “The traitors now know that Bartowski isn’t a normal civilian. They’ll think he’s a cyborg - and they already managed to capture him once; they’ll come for him again.” He bared his teeth. “Besides, we don’t have to tell the CIA all the details.”

That was a good point. Sort of. Chuck slowly nodded.

*****

“Bye! See you tomorrow!”

Sarah saw Chuck, seated on the couch with his leg propped up, wave and smile as the last of their ‘guests’ left, but it wasn’t his honest smile.

She still waited a few minutes before she addressed the issue - enough so the two Slayers wouldn’t overhear them. “So, how are you doing?” she asked when she joined him on the couch after filling the dishwasher

“Uh…” He winced. “I don’t know, actually. Not about being bait, of course - better me than anyone else. But what are our chances to actually deal with Fulcrum? We haven’t done well so far.”

They had done quite well for a small team facing such an organisation - a fact even more apparent now that they knew about Fulcrum’s mind control machine. But Chuck wouldn’t see it like that. “We’ve hurt them several times already,” she said. Just exposing the conspiracy was a big step - the traitors would have had to adjust all their plans in the face of the CIA’s reaction.

“Enough to matter?” Chuck asked, sounding morose.

“Yes,” she said, nodding emphatically. “They don’t have unlimited numbers, Chuck.”

“They can use their mind control machine to make more,” he retorted.

“They can’t make more spies,” she pointed out. “They don’t have the Intersect.”

“Oh. If they combined Petrova’s work with the Intersect…” Chuck started to pale.

“Yes.” That would be a nightmare scenario - Fulcrum would have a nigh-infinite reservoir of trained spies, loyal unto death.

“Uh, should we be using me as bait in these circumstances?” A very forced smile appeared on his face. “I mean… I’m not afraid of playing bait - well, not much - but if they get me…”

“They won’t,” she told him, squeezing his thigh - the one of his good leg. “We won’t let them.”

He nodded, but she wasn’t sure if he believed her.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, February 22nd, 2008**

Chuck didn’t mind playing bait. Well, he did, but better him than Ellie and Devon. Or anyone else, to be honest. He wanted to be a spy, after all, and that was a high-risk profession. Well, technically, he was planning to become a Watcher, but that wasn’t exactly a safe job, either.

But playing bait when the enemy thought that he was some cybernetically enhanced superspy and would plan to capture him with that in mind? That was if they didn’t plan to simply eliminate him - if they expected bionics, they might think his corpse would be enough to examine…

He shuddered.

“Are you alright?”

Chuck didn’t jump, but only because he was sitting and had a broken leg. How had Lester sneaked up on him without him noticing? Some spy he was… “What?” he asked as he turned his seat around.

“You were shivering. You aren’t running a fever, are you? You shouldn’t be working if you’re sick.”

Chuck smiled. That was quite caring for the man. “Don’t worry…” he started to say when Lester cut him off.

“Because you might infect others, and I don’t want to catch anything. I can’t afford to be sick. Jeff & Lester finally got a good paying gig!”

Ah. Of course. Chuck should have expected something like that. “No, I’m not sick,” he told Lester with considerably less warmth. “I was merely suffering a flashback to getting trampled by overweight shopaholics and breaking my leg.”

“Ah.” Lester nodded. “I get it - you’re suffering from PTSD. All the fighting couldn’t do it, but when your safe place turned into a death trap, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Did you consider therapy? I think this would qualify as work-related trauma, so the Buy More would have to cover it.”

Chuck narrowed his eyes at him. Why would….? Of course! “Even if I did take therapy, you wouldn’t get my job.”

“Why not? I’m next in line among the Nerd Herd. I’m the beta to your alpha. You know, wolf pack rules.”

“Lester,” Chuck said, sighing, “It doesn’t work like that. We aren’t wolves. And if we were, what about Anna?” He nodded at the young woman, who was busy staring down a biker trying to return a used DVD in the home entertainment section.

Lester paled a little. “Uh… forget I said anything, OK? I’ve got a house call coming up!”

Chuck sighed as the man vanished. At least with his leg broken, he was exempt from making house calls. Small mercies. With his leg broken, he was also not in an ideal shape to fight off kidnapping - or assassination - attempts. Especially attempts by The Chameleon - Chuck didn’t believe that the man had perished in the assault on the Fulcrum base. The spy could be passing for anyone, after all. He might’ve been the one interrogating Chuck - or that could’ve been another disguise.

Well, almost anyone. Chuck glanced at the Do-It-Yourself section, where Vi was studying axes and machetes. And had been doing so for half an hour, apparently without losing interest. Slayers and weapons...

But with her present, The Chameleon would have to disguise his scent to avoid detection - and even if he knew about that weakness, doing so would make him stand out anyway, greatly reducing the number of suspects they had to worry about.

It would be easier if they could’ve hired Vi as a Buy More employee, but Big Mike was still adamant about not hiring Caridad or any of her ‘crazy friends’. 

“Hi, Chuck!”

“Hi, Morgan.” Chuck looked over his shoulder and saw his friend approaching - with two sodas in his hands.

“Here!” Morgan handed him one. “Wouldn’t want you to strain yourself and limp over to the break room, right?”

“Thanks.” Chuck popped it open and took a sip.

“No problem. I hope this also makes Fulcrum think that you are much more disabled than you are. That way, you’ll attract their attention like a crippled member of a herd.”

“Thanks,” Chuck said in a flat voice. He wasn’t quite crippled, but he really couldn’t run, only limp at a decent speed.

His friend seemed to miss Chuck’s less than enthusiastic response since he smiled widely. “No problem. We want this mission to succeed quickly, right?”

He wasn’t wrong there. “Of course,” Chuck agreed. Mostly.

“Preferably before the bodyguards arrive,” Morgan continued as he leaned against the Nerd herd desk.

His friend sounded a little concerned, Chuck noticed. “Something wrong?” Had Bane told him something about the new agents?

Morgan looked around, then shrugged. “Just… we won’t get lucky forever, you know?”

“Yeah.” Chuck nodded, then emptied his can. He knew that very well. Sooner or later, something would go wrong.

“So far, the agents they sent worked out. Sarah, Kirsten, even Casey. But that’s bound to change,” Morgan went on.

Chuck nodded, though he wasn’t just concerned about the new agents. Morgan thought that Bane had ‘worked out’? So much for keeping his distance and being careful. 

Damn.

“It never rains, it pours,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 22nd, 2008**

“Unless someone else likes black SUVs and our parking spots, then the bodyguards are here,” Chuck announced to the rest of the team.

“Thanks,” Bane said as she joined him in the room. She had changed from her Wienerlicious uniform, Chuck noticed. As had Sarah, who followed the other spy. Both wore black turtlenecks and matching trousers.

“Right on schedule,” Casey commented, entering from the armoury and wiping his hands with a rag. He, too, was wearing a black shirt and trousers.

“Uh… should I have changed?” Chuck said, pointing at his Buy More working clothes. “You all look like spies, and I look like...”

“...an undercover spy,” Sarah told him as she stepped up to his seat and squeezed his shoulder.

“Ah.”

“The more harmless you look, the better,” Casey grumbled. “If there’s a traitor among them, they’ll underestimate you.”

“Ah.” Chuck nodded, though the idea that the people who were to protect Ellie and Devin could be enemy spies was disconcerting. That would pretty much… He blinked. But if all the others were dressing up to emphasise that they were experienced spies, wouldn’t that mean that they were playing bait for him?

Before he could voice that thought, though, the door opened, and the three spies entered, led by a tall, dark-haired man. Agent Daniel Shaw - they had seen his file in advance. Behind him followed Agents Jason Morris and Roberta Flores. Morris was a little shorter than Shaw, but far broader and wore a blonde crewcut, and Flores was of average height and weight and wore shoulder-length straight hair. Dyed black - she was actually a brunette, according to the Intersect’s compiled file.

Everyone else stood a little straighter. Chuck, sitting with his broken leg propped up, just sat a little straighter and hoped he didn’t look as pathetic as he felt.

“Hello, Agent Shaw,” Sarah said, nodding at the man. “Agent Morris. Agent Flores. Welcome to The Castle.”

“Agent Walker.” Shaw returned the nod with a smile. “Agent Casey. Agent Bane. Mr Bartowski.”

Had Shaw stressed the ‘Mr’? Chuck couldn’t tell. He smiled back anyway. “Hello! Thank you for coming to protect my sister and her fiancé.”

Shaw’s smile slipped for a moment, then came back with some teeth. Or something. “Let me make this clear from the start: We’re not just here to protect your family, Mr Bartowski. We’re here to destroy Fulcrum. They’ll come after your sister and her fiancé, and then we’ll get them.”

“Uh…” Chuck grimaced. “I’m supposed to be the bait, here. Not Ellie and Devon.”

“He’s correct,” Sarah added. “You were briefed about the mission, weren’t you? You’re here to protect two civilians.”

“Of course we were briefed. And we will protect the two objectives. But that’s not all we will be doing,” Shaw retorted. “I’ve been hunting Fulcrum for a long time - this is the best chance to capture their top operatives, and I won’t let that slip through my fingers.”

“We’re aware of the opportunity this presents,” Sarah told him. “Fighting Fulcrum has been the primary objective of this entire mission.” She had crossed her arms and was not-quite glaring at Shaw, Chuck noticed. The whole stance reminded him of Caridad when she was meeting another Slayer.

“Uh…” he spoke up. “This isn’t a competition, is it? We need to work together.”

“Of course,” Shaw agreed at once. “I’m merely pointing out that my team is more than capable of protecting our objective and conducting operations against Fulcrum.”

Casey scoffed. “Don’t bite off more than you chew, Shaw. If you underestimate Fulcrum, things will end badly.”

Shaw narrowed his eyes at the NSA agent. “I know exactly how dangerous the organisation is, Agent Casey.”

“We’ll see,” Casey said.

“We won’t defeat Fulcrum if we don’t work together,” Bane cut in. “And that means we have to trust you to do your part, Agent Shaw.”

“And we have to trust you to do your part;” Shaw replied.

It really was like a Slayer meeting without Buffy or Faith to keep them in line and focused. Chuck tried to tune out the bickering. Shaw thought that _they_ were underestimating Fulcrum? Well, Shaw didn’t know about the Slayers. And that Fulcrum thought that the Slayers were cyborgs. And if Fulcrum’s agents came prepared for bionic women - and men - then Shaw would end up misjudging them. But they couldn’t tell him the truth, could they?

Damn. So much for getting help from the CIA.

*****

Sarah kept her temper in check. Shaw was an ass - and a pain in the ass, too - but she was a veteran spy, and they were, nominally at least, on the same side. She could ignore the snipes and insinuations that they were not to be trusted. She could be the better spy. 

It helped, of course, that she knew a few things Shaw didn’t. “Well,” she said, smiling as sweetly as she could, “as you must have been informed, our team is working with another group of operatives in the area. While their mission and organisation are classified beyond your clearance, we do cooperate against Fulcrum on occasion, so you’ll need to know their team.”

“Ah. The mystery spies,” Flores said, speaking up for the first time. She was smiling, too.

“Yes,” Sarah confirmed as she looked at the only female spy in Shaw’s team. How much of that smile was an act? The agency would certainly have told the new spies about the Council, and would, as they had for Sarah, heavily hinted at wanting them gathering information without ordering them to do so. Was Flores the distraction, the obvious investigator, leaving Shaw and Morris to actually spy on them? Or was she a double-bluff?

“We have been informed, yes,” Shaw said, his frown growing a little more pronounced, as Sarah noticed. “But our information was… spotty.”

“I believe that the word you’re looking for is ‘redacted’,” Chuck said. “You don’t have the needed clearance.”

“As I understand, not even General Beckman has the needed clearance,” Shaw said, glaring at Chuck.

“That is correct,” Sarah interjected, drawing the agent’s attention back to her. She didn’t want him bothering Chuck.

“But you do,” Shaw replied, glancing at all of them - including Bane.

“Yes,” Sarah told him. She had to refrain from beaming at him when she noticed him clenching his teeth. “Our allies won’t always be available, their own mission taking priority,” she went on, “but when they are, we can count on _them_.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have stressed that, she thought when she saw Shaw’s expression growing harder. Morris and Flores’s, too.

“Anyway,” Chuck said, “You’ll all meet them soon.”

“Here?” Flores asked, looking around.

“No, we’re having a get-together dinner at Ellie and Devon’s,” Chuck told her, “and everyone’s coming.”

Her years of experience as a spy allowed Sarah to avoid giggling at the expressions of the new agents to that revelation.

“You’re throwing a literal welcoming party?” Morris asked.

“Well… yes?” Chuck was honestly confused by their reaction, Sarah could tell. “You’ll be working closely with them, after all.”

“Ah. We’ll be posing as new acquaintances.” Flores nodded.

“Uh… yes.” Chuck glanced at Sarah, and she raised her eyebrows in response. He should’ve expected that professional spies would interpret the situation with a certain bias.

But it was good to see that he hadn’t.

She took a step forward. “Now let me show you the base - you’ll be using it as well, I take it, and store most of your heavy weapons here.”

“We’re supposed to use your own stock as needed as well,” Morris said.

“Yes,” Sarah agreed. That was standard practice, after all. “The armoury is here.”

Once more, the new team looked surprised. “Are those… flamethrowers?” Flores asked.

“Yes,” Sarah said.

“They come in handy at times,” Casey added with a toothy smile.

“Just be careful when refuelling them. Ask for help if you haven’t done it before,” Chuck cut in from his spot at the table.

“Flamethrowers.” Shaw shook his head. “Did you set Fulcrum’s base on fire?”

“What? No!” Chuck replied before Sarah could. “That was done by their commander. We didn’t even have flamethrowers with us on that mission - they slow you down, and you can’t really use a flamethrower efficiently if you expect hostages in the building.”

Chuck was just being helpful, but Shaw’s team was now looking at him with quite different expressions.

“Thank you,” Shaw said after a moment. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

“Sure thing.” Chuck nodded. “Also, don’t use the leftmost one; that’s Morgan’s.”

“Morgan… Grimes?” Flores said.

“Yes. You’ll meet him and the others at Ellie’s.”

Sarah was sure that the agents would be looking at Grimes differently as well.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 22nd, 2008**

“Sis? It’s us!” Chuck announced as he led Sarah and the others into Ellie and Devon’s apartment. “We’re a little early, but that’s OK, right?”

It better be OK, Sarah thought - Caridad, Vi and Morgan were already there as well, sitting on the couch in the living room. And there was Brown-Smythe at the table, reading The Times.

“We’ll be right with you - just taking the snacks out,” Ellie replied from the kitchen.

Sarah noticed Caridad and Vi perking up. They seemed even distracted from studying the newcomers. But only for a moment before they went back to staring at Shaw’s team like cats staring at a new stray in their territory. Or at a mouse.

“Everyone, these are Agents Shaw, Morris and Flores,” Chuck introduced them. “Agents - Morgan, Caridad, Vi and Phil.”

“Philip Brown-Smythe,” the old Watcher said, in his best Queen’s English. “Good evening.”

Sarah didn’t miss the glances Shaw exchanged with the others. She just knew that they would assume that this was an MI6 operation.

“Hi!” Morgan said, smiling friendly. He didn’t seem to notice the wary reaction he got. “I’m Morgan. Chuck’s best friend. I’ve known him and Ellie since we were kids.”

Caridad was curter. “Hello.” 

“Yo,” Vi added, waving. Unlike Caridad, who was staring at the spies in a challenging manner, Vi was taking the other extreme, shifting to a slouch and pointedly relaxed attitude. As if Shaw and his team were of no concern.

Typical, Sarah thought. But then, she had expected that.

*****

Chuck allowed himself to relax a little. Phil had talked to the two Slayers, as had Morgan. Still, with Slayers, there was always the chance that their egos got the better of them and started a confrontation over whose turf the city was.

“So, you’re the mysterious team we’re not supposed to know anything about,” Flores said. The spy’s smile wasn’t just friendly, there was also a bit of a challenge to it.

Great. Just what they needed - not.

“Yes,” Caridad replied. “And you’re the bodyguards who are supposed to keep Ellie and Devon safe.” She bared her teeth.

“Yes,” Shaw cut in, “but we’re not limited to bodyguarding. The best way to keep the objective safe is to take out the threat.”

“Just leave that to us,” Caridad said. “We’ll deal with them soon enough.”

“Yeah,” Vi added. “Focus on protecting them; we’ve got this.”

“We all need to work together. We can’t underestimate Fulcrum,” Chuck reminded them. 

Caridad frowned but did look a little contrite. For about a second. 

“Indeed,” Phil said. “Trying to one-up our allies doesn’t behove us.”

“There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’,” Morgan added, nodding.

“We’re just concerned about Ellie and Devon,” Caridad claimed.

“As are we, of course,” Devon said with one of his winning smiles as he placed a tray loaded with snacks on the low table. “Devon Woodcomb,” he introduced himself to the new spies.

“Ellie Bartowski,” Ellie added, bringing another tray.

“Agent Shaw.”

“Agent Flores.”

“Agent Morris.”

“Please help yourself to the appetisers before they’re gone,” Ellie said with a glance at the tray on the table, which the Slayers were already raiding. The spies wouldn’t miss that, Chuck knew, but he didn’t know what conclusions they might draw from it.

“Thank you for protecting us,” Devon said.

“Just doing our duty,” Shaw replied. He sounded not quite as humble as he probably had meant to, in Chuck’s opinion. Though not as dismissive as he probably felt, either.

But the others had picked up on it as well, and a moment of awkward silence followed. 

Ellie broke it. “So, you’ll be shadowing us at work. Will you be around the house as well?”

“We were told that your home was already protected,” Shaw told her.

“Yes,” Sarah said. “We’re living next door.”

“And we can move in if it’s needed,” Caridad added. “It’d be no hardship, really.”

She would’ve sounded more honest if she hadn’t been stuffing her face with Ellie’s cooking a moment before.

“Don’t forget your other duties,” Phil reminded her.

“I wasn’t!”

“Don’t worry, I can handle it,” Vi said, earning a glare from the other Slayer.

“I can handle both!”

“You can’t be at two places at once.”

Chuck cleared his throat. “Anyway! We’ll need to coordinate. Schedules, shifts, that stuff.”

“We already know your shifts at the hospital,” Shaw said, very matter of factly. “We need to be informed about any and all deviations and private trips you are planning.”

“Err… yes. Of course,” Devon said after a glance at Ellie. “That’s only logical, right?”

It was, but Shaw could’ve worded it a little more diplomatically, Chuck thought.

“Yes, perfectly logical,” Ellie replied with one of her ‘I’m annoyed at you but will remain polite’ smiles. “Drinks?”

Yes, things weren’t going as badly as Chuck had feared, but they weren’t exactly going well, either. At least the new spies hadn’t commented about the age and attitude of the Slayers. But they hadn’t even started eating yet, so there was plenty of time to hit that particular subject.

*****

“The roast is delicious,” Flores commented.

“Yes,” Morris added.

“Thank you,” Ellie replied.

Chuck resisted the urge to add ‘as are the potatoes’ to rub in how stilted the conversation was going.

“So, what do you do for fun? When you’re not working, I mean. Do you do any sports?” Devon asked.

“We keep fit,” Shaw replied in a tone that discouraged further inquiries.

Devon wasn’t as easily scared off, though. “In the gym, or do you do outdoors as well?”

“It depends on the occasion.”

“Ah. Ever do any free climbing? There are a few great routes nearby.”

“I doubt that we’ll have the time for that.”

“If you want to, we can go climbing. You’d have to come along anyway, right?” Devon smiled his best winning smile at the agents again.

“We’re more effective if we keep our distance,” Shaw retorted.

“Ah.” Devon’s face fell slightly. “Well, if you change your opinion, just tell us. It’s the least we can do.”

“If you want to help us, just limit your exposure to potential threats,” Shaw told him.

“And don’t try to expose them to fun activities,” Caridad muttered. Loudly enough to be heard clearly in the kitchen.

“We’re here on a mission, not to have fun,” Flores said.

“You can do both,” Vi pointed out. “All work and no play makes for a dull life.”

“We have our priorities,” Shaw said. 

Morris merely nodded - the man hadn’t said much more than ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ all evening.

“A laudable attitude, though, in my experience, too much focus on your mission at the expense of your private life tends to result in a less than optimal performance,” Phil commented.

“Yes!” Caridad agreed eagerly.

“Of course, our definitions of what constitutes ‘too much’ might differ,” the old Watcher added with a wry smile that had the Slayer pout.

Shaw, though, apparently didn’t agree at all. “We’re here to destroy Fulcrum. Anything else is secondary.”

The agent sounded like a fanatic, Chuck realised. Not just motivated but almost obsessed. He glanced at Sarah, whose lips formed a thin line - she had noticed as well, of course. “Uh, and we will,” Chuck said. “Destroy Fulcrum, that is. But if we sacrifice everything and everyone for that, it’s not really a victory, is it?”

Shaw’s cold expression clearly stated that he didn’t think share Chuck’s opinion.

*****


	37. The Fallout Part 6

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 22nd, 2008**

“That could’ve gone better,” Chuck said, sighing, once they were - finally- back in their apartment and alone.

“It wasn’t our fault,” Sarah told him, sitting down - well, more like throwing herself onto - the couch. “Shaw’s a jerk.”

Chuck nodded. He would’ve used a stronger word. Ellie had, actually, after the bodyguards had left. “I wonder why the general sent him, and not someone a little more…”

“Reasonable? Diplomatic? Friendly?” Sarah prompted.

“All of the above?” Chuck sat down next to her, sighing with relief as he put his foot on the low table.

She snorted at that. “He seems a fanatical enemy of Fulcrum. That’s probably why he was sent - the Agency wanted someone they could trust wasn’t a traitor.”

“Ah.” That made sense. But… “Speaking of traitors,” he said, “If Fulcrum could implant hypnotic triggers, as they told me, can we trust anyone?” Any spy could be a sleeper agent, after all.

“From what we know, it doesn’t look like they can rush such a procedure,” Sarah replied. “They would have been very careful to kidnap those who wouldn’t be missed for at least a day. They wouldn’t have wanted to risk being exposed. If the Agency became aware of their capabilities, a lot of their plans would be affected. Are affected, now,” she added, “Thanks to you.”

“Thanks to my mistake, you mean,” he corrected her.

“You were the one to gather this information and to escape from their clutches. We merely helped you.”

“I was stuck in their torture chamber with a broken leg,” he said. “That wasn’t much of an escape.”

“You managed to disable half a dozen spies and sent the rest fleeing,” she retorted. “Chuck - you did well. Not many spies would have managed to do as well as you did.”

“Not many spies would have fallen for the old ‘man suffers a heart attack’ trick,” he told her.

“Because many spies wouldn’t have cared about civilians. Chuck, that’s not a good thing. Once you stop caring about others, about civilians, what do you care about at all?”

“Our country?” He tilted his head slightly.

She snorted. “I don’t think many will care about the country, but not about the people. There’s a reason Fulcrum could recruit so many spies - and I don’t think it’s their mindwiping machine.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t thought about that.

“But that still means that there could be a dozen or more traitors waiting to be triggered,” Sarah went on. “Which makes capturing Fulcrum agents so we can interrogate them and find out which agents they turned or brainwashed a crucial task.”

And a very dangerous one. “So… the fate of the CIA is our hands?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that,” Sarah said, chuckling once, “but… close?”

“Great.” He sighed and tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling. “And they expect cyborgs. Or bionic women.”

“That wasn’t your fault, either.”

“That doesn’t change it, though. Our best ace in the hole - Slayers looking like harmless women - has been neutralised.”

“There’s also magic,” she pointed out. “We found you with a spell.”

“Yeah… But what if Fulcrum finds out about magic? There are lots of practitioners who sell their services for money. They might not even realise who they are working for. Until they are kidnapped and brainwashed. Oh my gosh! That might even qualify as an apocalypse. Well, not yet. But if demons get their hooks into Fulcrum…” He winced at his own thought. “We really need to stop Fulcrum. Before it’s too late and we have to fight cyborg-demon-hybrid spies.” He blinked. “That sounds like a really awful movie. Worse than ‘Surf Nazis Must Die’.”

“‘Surf Nazis Must Die’?”

“It’s a real movie,” Chuck told her. “We can rent the DVD if you want.”

“No, thanks,” she replied in a really dry voice.

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Sorry.”

“Chuck…”

He grinned at her, with more humour than he felt. “Alright, alright. No more sorries.” She smiled back at him. “So…” his phone beeping - he had a message - interrupted him. He checked. “Oh. Dad hasn’t had any success tracking the money that paid for the Fulcrum base, but he’s still working on it.”

“Good.”

It wasn’t good. Good would have been the news that Dad had found Fulcrum’s backers. But it wasn’t bad, either.

And in their current situation, that was probably as good as it got.

Chuck sighed again and rubbed the skin right where the cast started. It didn’t help much with the itching further down the shin.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, February 23rd, 2008**

“Saturday morning should be spent in bed, sleeping in. Not working.” Morgan sighed rather dramatically as he leaned against the Nerd Herd desk.

“Yes, Morgan. And the world should be at peace,” Chuck said. “And my leg shouldn’t be broken. We don’t always get what we want.”

“I know,” Morgan replied with a frown. “I’m just trying to act normally so our enemies won’t be scared off.”

“Ah.” Chuck shifted his broken leg around a little so it was resting comfortably on the chair next to him. “But they know that we know, so you acting normally will probably make them expect a trap.”

“Oh. I didn’t think about that. But would they really suspect me?” Morgan asked. “I’m not exactly… threatening. And I didn’t kick the butt of half a dozen spies.”

“But they think you’re a ‘cyborg handler’,” Chuck pointed out. “And, uh, since they think I’m augmented, they might assume you’re augmented as well - they didn’t mistake me for a Watcher, after all.”

“Oh. So, I’ve got to worry about some spy with an anti-material rifle sniping me?” Morgan asked. Chuck saw he was looking around.

“I don’t think they have wallhacks in real life,” he told Morgan. “We should be safe here.”

“But outside? Or at home?” Morgan shook his head. “Perhaps we should start using the tunnels to enter and leave. Or we could start living in here!”

Living in the Buy More? “Morgan! You don’t really want to live here, do you?”

“Hey! I’ve spent the night here a few times,” his friend said, frowning at him. “When Mum had Big Mike over. It’s not so bad. Like camping indoors.”

“Camping indoors… that might have saved a lot of scouts in Sunnydale...” Chuck shook his head. He had to worry about the present and future, not the past. “Did you run this past Bane?”

“ _Kirsten_ thought that forting up was a good idea,” Morgan replied.

“In the Buy More?” Chuck took a mental note of the correction. As he had thought, this was quite serious for Morgan.

“Not… exactly. It was more theoretical. Brainstorming. Only without the brainstorming part. We didn’t go into details.” Morgan shrugged. “Just… we agreed that not exposing ourselves would be safer.”

And that translated into living in the Buy More? “Wouldn’t it be safer to stop coming to the Buy More in that case?”

His friend blinked. “You mean quitting.”

“You told me that once you’re full Watcher, you’ll quit,” Chuck reminded him.

“I’m not a full Watcher yet.”

“When’s your next test?”

“Haven’t applied yet.”

“Ah.” Chuck didn’t know what to say to that. Asking if Morgan planned to apply seemed… well, there was a reason they never discussed math when they were in high school. Not even when playing Dungeons & Dragons, where math was really helpful. You didn’t remind your best friend of things he didn’t want to think of. “Anyway, we’re playing bait, so a certain risk is inevitable.”

“But not the risk of getting your brains blown away with a .50 BMG round from a mile away,” Morgan retorted.

“I don’t think there’s a sniper nest that far away,” Chuck said. Casey was a sniper; he would’ve mentioned it, wouldn’t he? They could ask him - he had returned to ‘work’ now that Shaw had arrived. “Hey! Casey! Could you come over for a second? Got a question!” Chuck yelled.

The NSA agent marched over to them. “What got your panties bunched up?” he growled.

“Uh…” Chuck blinked at the mental image that comment conjured. “We wanted to know if there’s a sniper’s nest a mile away from which you can kill someone in the parking lot.”

“No.”

“Ah.” Morgan started to smile.

“There are three possible sniper’s nests covering the parking lot within six hundred yards,” Casey went on with a nasty grin.

“Uh… and we’ve got them all covered, right?” Chuck asked, trying not to wince.

“Rigged to blow?” Morgan asked.

“We’ve got surveillance on them,” Casey admitted. “But any surveillance can be fooled.”

“Great,” Chuck said with a frown.

“Risk of the trade, Bartowski,” Casey told him. “Sometimes, you need to sacrifice someone to detect an ambush. Everyone’s expendable.” He nodded curtly at both, then walked off.

It would have been more impressive if the man weren’t accosted by an old lady asking for help in selecting the right toy for her poodle before he had left the electronics section. But Chuck’s mirth was short-lived.

“Do you think someone has already told him that we’re not in the army?” Morgan asked. “He’ll have a field day with rule one of the Council.”

Which was ‘Don’t die’. Chuck nodded. Even though he knew that sometimes, it couldn’t be helped. Still… He looked around the store, once more trying to spot the disguised spy he expected. Once again without success.

They really needed a better plan than waiting for Fulcrum to make a move.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, February 23rd, 2008**

“We need a better plan than waiting for Fulcrum to make a move,” Shaw announced in the evening, in what seemed to be a sort of ad hoc meeting.

“Really,” Casey grumbled, arms crossed, from his favourite spot at the wall.

“Well, sitting around hoping that Fulcrum will get sloppy isn’t an optimal plan,” Chuck said. The agent glared at him, and he flinched a little. It was hard to read the man.

“Of course going on the offensive would be better,” Bane said, “but we are limited - we have no target. And we can’t really fool them into thinking we know another base of theirs.”

Shaw glared at her for a moment, Chuck noticed. “No. But we can present them with a target they have to investigate,” he said.

“I thought that that was me,” Chuck told him. He almost patted the cast on his leg for emphasis. “You know, weak and lamed.” Packs went after those animals, after all.

“If you were, they would have made their move by now,” the other agent retorted.

“Or they want to avoid rushing into another mistake,” Sarah pointed out. “Chuck did pull a number on them.” Chuck smiled at the praise.

“At least they think so,” Casey added, which took the wind out of Chuck’s sails. A little, at least - he had been lucky. And he had broken his leg in the process.

“That might be,” Shaw said, in a tone that made it clear that he didn’t think so, “but, so far, their spies have either avoided your notice or are staying away from this area.”

“So far.” Otherwise, Caridad would have picked up The Chameleon’s scent. No one knew about that Slayer power. “They won’t stay away forever,” he added, hoping he was right.

“They only need to stay away long enough,” Shaw countered.

“Long enough for what?” Sarah asked. 

“To take over the Agency.”

Chuck opened his mouth to point out that that was unlikely before he remembered that they had a machine that could implant hypnotic triggers. None of the others showed much of a reaction.

Shaw didn’t seem to be surprised by that. “You know how powerful they are. They have thoroughly penetrated the CIA. Unless they are stopped soon, they’ll win.”

“You’re stating the obvious,” Casey said. “What’s your plan?”

“We fake a base in the area.”

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, February 23rd, 2008**

“Do you think Shaw’s plan will work?”

Sarah finished pouring the drinks before she turned to answer Chuck. He was on the couch, broken leg propped up on the low table. On the TV, the news was running, but he wasn’t paying attention, she could tell. “We don’t have anything else to do but waiting,” she said.

“So you don’t think it’ll work.” He sighed.

“I didn’t say that,” she told him as she sat down and handed him his drink. “At the very least, it’ll keep Shaw busy.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “So he won’t do something else without our knowledge.”

“He might do that anyway,” she said, taking a sip from her drink. “He’s a fanatic.”

“And he thinks he knows best. Oh, this is really good,” he added after taking a sip from his.

“Thanks.” She smiled at him. “I was undercover as a bartender, once.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Not for long, though.” That had been a rather messy mission.

“Long enough to make good drinks, though.” He took another sip. “Do you think it’ll be enough to keep Shaw from looking into Slayers?”

“It’s possible,” she admitted. “Unless his fixation on Fulcrum is an act. But Flores and Morris?” Sarah shook her head. “They might not dig, but they’ll keep their eyes open.”

“Oh.” He took a swallow this time. “And we haven’t even managed to find out if we can trust Bane.”

“Mh.” She refrained from telling him that spies could rarely trust anyone. He knew that already. Or should.

“Do you really think that Fulcrum could take over the CIA?”

“I don’t think it’s impossible,” she said. The traitors had a lot of helpers in the Agency. Some of them might not even know it. “But the government is aware of the threat. They will have taken countermeasures as well.” And the government knew about magic. That would be another advantage. Fulcrum, by all accounts, didn’t.

“So, we’re good then? Even if we don’t manage to destroy Fulcrum quickly?”

He looked so relieved, Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell him that the government - at least the part people dealing with the CIA - might come to an agreement with Fulcrum. Or elements of the organisation. It was a slim chance, but the government had worked with worse people in the name of ‘national interests’.

Hell, it employed worse people. Sometimes, Sarah had been the one to deal with them when they became more trouble than they were worth.

*****

**California, Burbank, February 24th, 2008**

“Isn’t this a little close to the base?” Chuck asked, looking around. The office building they were entering wasn’t across the street of the Buy More, but it wasn’t more than a block away, which wasn’t much better, in his opinion.

“It has to be close to your cover job so it looks like a reaction to your kidnapping,” Shaw retorted. “We’ve rented the basement and the first floor.”

“Uh, yeah… that’s the other thing,” Chuck said. “What about the other two floors?”

“They shouldn’t be an issue; I’ve run background checks on the tenants; accounting and law firms, small-time,” the agent replied. “We can easily keep them out of the base.”

“That wasn’t my concern,” Chuck said. Was the man dense or playing games? “But it means we’ll have civilians around who will be endangered, should Fulcrum attack the base.”

For a moment, Shaw actually didn’t seem to understand Chuck’s concern - the agent was frowning at him. Then he shook his head. “It also means that Fulcrum will have to consider whether killing civilians, with all the attention that causes, is worth blowing the entire base up.”

Chuck gasped. That was… 

“That’s remarkably cold-blooded, Agent Shaw,” Sarah said, in a matching tone.

Shaw frowned at her. “It’s unlikely that Fulcrum will opt for such measures. They want to capture you, according to our intel. And even if they did, they would strike outside business hours, when most of the other tenants have left already.”

“‘Most’?” Chuck stared at him.

“As I said, based on our intel, I don’t think Fulcrum will choose to eliminate us,” Shaw retorted as they entered the lobby. “So, this is mostly hypothetical.”

Shaw had stressed that ‘based on our intel’ twice, Chuck realised. Did the agent suspect that they hadn’t told them everything? No, he knew that they hadn’t since he knew the Council had been helping. 

“You do understand that we’re not at liberty to discuss classified information concerning our allies,” Sarah told Shaw.

“Without knowing what exactly happened and what Fulcrum knows about ‘our allies’, any analysis will have to depend partially on guesswork.” Shaw stared at them.

“Get used to it, Shaw,” Casey spat. “You never know everything you should know in our business.” The NSA agent looked around. “That’s just going to be the cover anyway. Let’s go down.”

Shaw didn’t like the dismissal - even Chuck could see that - but the spy nodded. “This way.”

The basement was… bare. Just a bunch of rooms, most of them empty but for the one holding central heating and air conditioning. “This doesn’t look like much of a base,” Chuck commented.

“It’s not supposed to,” Shaw said. “We’re just starting to build it, after all. That’s what Fulcrum will think.”

“Using other assets to build the base would expose them,” Sarah pointed out. “And if they get compromised, The Castle is compromised.”

“We won’t be using those assets, but potentially compromised ones to install a base here,” Shaw retorted. “That should speed up Fulcrum’s discovery of this location without raising suspicion.”

Casey snorted. “They’ll suspect a trap after the loss of their base.”

“I’m working with the information I have.”

“Stop fishing for classified intel,” Casey retorted. “You don’t have the clearance for it.”

Shaw gritted his teeth, Chuck noticed. “Withholding vital information isn’t a wise policy when faced by Fulcrum,” the man spat.

“Fulcrum isn’t the only threat we have to worry about,” Sarah said.

“It’s just the only threat you have to worry about,” Casey added with a sneer. “So, who’s going to be the bait in the base, anyway? Bartowski?”

“He is a person of interest for Fulcrum, as they have proven,” Shaw replied.

Casey scoffed. “That may have changed after he kicked their ass.”

Chuck smiled - if even the gruff NSA agent thought he had done decently…

“And he broke his leg doing it, so now he’s vulnerable.” 

And with one remark from Shaw, Chuck’s good mood was gone. On the other hand, it was better if he was the one Fulcrum wanted than Ellie and Devon. He nodded. “Get some computers installed, and I can work here analysing data.”

“That would be a good cover,” Shaw agreed.

“We’ll need real defences,” Sarah said. “Capable of stopping an attack for long enough to spring our trap.”

“We’ll be ready nearby,” Shaw said.

“‘We’?” Casey shook his head. “You’re needed to protect Bartowski’s sister and her fiancé. We’ll handle this.”

“You need me,” Shaw said with a glare, “and my team can handle their protection. Besides, I expect Fulcrum to act late in the evening or at night. The marks will be already at home at that time.”

“Unless they got the night shift,” Chuck pointed out. It didn’t happen too often, what with them being specialised surgeons, but they still did their part in the ER, as Devon called it.

Shaw didn’t acknowledge the point. Or Chuck. The spy kept glaring at Casey. But he was correct in that they could use all the help they could get, in Chuck’s opinion. Even if it was a fanatical spy who didn’t have the whole picture. Alienating Shaw further wouldn’t be a good idea.

“Uh…” Chuck cleared his throat. “The more, the merrier, right?”

He forced himself to smile despite all the glares levelled against him.

*****

**California, Burbank, Decoy Base, February 26th, 2008**

Watching a CIA base being constructed was interesting, Chuck found. It might just be a decoy base, but one wouldn’t be able to tell from seeing the construction crew at work. Well, that was the idea, after all.

The half a dozen people - were they spies with special training in construction, or were they construction workers vetted by the CIA? - had already installed the computers and other electronics and were now working on the passive and active defences. Which, if translated from spy-speak, meant the doors and mines. 

Chuck took note of the laters’ locations. And tried to work out the probable kill area. Just in case. But, mostly, he just walked around and made sure that he was seen - he was the bait, after all. He had to make Fulcrum come after him, instead of going after Ellie and Devon. Or Morgan. Or anyone else. Well, perhaps Shaw was an exception - Chuck was certain that the man would welcome an attack by Fulcrum.

“Speak of the devil…” Chuck mumbled as he spotted the spy observing the TV screens in the mock ‘command room’ - if you could call a fully functional command room that. He nodded at the man. “Good evening, Agent Shaw.”

“Bartowski.” Shaw’s nod was barely visible.

But if Chuck would let such an attitude scare him off, he wouldn’t be friends with Casey. Or valued co-workers, at least - he wasn’t entirely sure how Casey saw him. “Everything going according to plan?”

“As far as I can tell.” Shaw hadn’t looked up for his answer, still watching the flickering screens.

“Good. Good,” Chuck replied. He glanced at the TV screens. “Looks like there’s a faulty camera.”

“The cameras were checked.”

“I’m sure they were. But these are SpyCraft Mark Vs, and they have a tendency to get loose wires when they are subjected to heavy vibrations. Like from drilling holes to mount them on a wall,” Chuck explained.

“Those are CIA cameras, not some… Walmart special.” Shaw was now looking at him. But since the spy was glaring, it wasn’t really a sign of progress.

Chuck kept smiling. “Well… they’ve got the same guts. The CIA version just has better encryption and insulation, but the power unit is the same model. And that’s where the fault usually appears.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really,” Chuck told him, nodding. “I can show you.”

“Please do.” 

The other spy didn’t look like he believed him. Well, Chuck might not be a veteran spy, but he knew his electronics. “Alright,” he said, grabbing his crutches, “let’s get the camera.”

Fortunately, Chuck had recognised the hallway that particular camera covered - having to ask would have been embarrassing. And it didn’t take Shaw long to get the camera down, either - the construction crew hadn’t yet installed the bulletproof glass shield in front of it. Chuck would’ve been a little quicker, even - if he hadn’t broken his leg.

Opening it was a child's play. “See?” Chuck pointed at the power unit. “That cable there is loose, and that’s why it flickers whenever someone walks past. Or when a particularly heavy truck drives past. It could actually serve as a sort of seismic sensor,” he joked.

“I’ll have the crew replace it,” Shaw said.

“What? No, no.” Chuck shook his head. “That’s unnecessary. I’ll fix it.”

Shaw didn’t say anything, so Chuck took that as agreement and pulled out his toolset. Well, his travelling toolset. “It just needs a little glue there to fix it in place… There!” He smiled as he closed the camera up. “Now all you need is let it dry for a few minutes, and then it’ll work perfectly fine. Unless you mount it outside in Montana in winter or so - the glue wouldn’t like the cold. But then, the rest of the electronics wouldn’t like it either.”

Shaw looked surprised. “I didn’t know you were an electronics specialist.”

“Well, I was at Stanford,” Chuck told him. “Until, you know, I was framed as a cheater by a rogue CIA agent.”

“Ah.” Shaw nodded as if Chuck had told him something profound. 

Perhaps he had told Shaw more than he had wanted? Well, if they were telling each other personal things… “Say… your issues with Fulcrum seem, well, personal. It doesn’t seem to be just a mission for you.” And Shaw didn’t seem to be the kind of patriot like Casey who would take treason personal.

Shaw’s expression grew cold, and Chuck almost took a step back. “Sorry if that’s too personal, I’m just, you know… concerned?”

The agent took a deep breath before glancing around. “They killed my partner. She had found some irregularities in a CIA station, and started looking into it, but they killed her before she could uncover them.”

“Ah.” Chuck nodded. Shaw didn’t seem to be the kind of man who’d take losing a team member so personal, either - he certainly seemed willing to sacrifice others to get at Fulcrum. But he had said ‘she’... Chuck blinked. “That wasn’t in your file.”

“You’ve read my file?” Shaw narrowed his eyes at him, then scoffed. “Of course you did.”

“Standard procedure,” Chuck told him. Well, it was - for Sarah and Casey.

“We kept it private. I wouldn’t have been able to investigate without them finding out, otherwise. But without anyone knowing about us, they didn’t suspect me, not until it was too late.”

“Ah.” Things started to make sense now. But even if Shaw just wanted to avenge his dead love that didn’t change that he seemed willing to sacrifice others to achieve his goals.

On the contrary.

Chuck still forced himself to smile and nod.

*****

**California, Burbank, Decoy Base, March 3rd, 2008**

“Do you think Fulcrum saw through our plan?”

Sarah looked up from her notebook at Chuck’s question. “Hm?” He did sound concerned so this wasn’t idle chit-chat to pass the time.

“I mean, this decoy base has been operational for days now, and no attack happened.” Chuck looked around at the big TV screens lining the wall of the command room. “We didn’t see any sign of spies scouting the area, either.”

“Just because we didn’t see them doesn’t mean there were no spies,” she told him.

“Don’t call it the ‘decoy base’!” Shaw cut in. “If anyone overhears you, it’ll give the game away.”

“But it’s just us,” Chuck retorted. “If anyone managed to plant bugs in the base here, they have seen through your plan already.”

“That’s not the point,” Shaw shot back. “If you start endangering security like that, you’ll do it elsewhere as well. Bad habits kill spies - or their teams. That’s a basic lesson.”

“I’m not talking about spy stuff in public,” Chuck defended himself. “Or to civilians. Well, not to civilians who aren’t already in the know. And even to them, I don’t mention actual plans like this. I was just wondering if the plan’s working.”

“You shouldn’t be talking to civilians at all. Not about these matters,” Shaw told him. “And be patient. Not everyone rushes into missions.”

Sarah saw Chuck press his lips together at the criticism and spoke up: “Fulcrum has had enough time to act, though. We’re just worried that we’re missing something while we’re sitting here waiting for them to walk into our trap.”

“Uh, yes, exactly,” Chuck agreed, not entirely convincingly.

“Your sister and her fiancé are fine,” Shaw spat. “Morris and Flores are doing a good job.”

Sarah refrained from pointing out that, officially, the two other spies were doing what should have been Shaw’s main mission. She wasn’t even sure if he had ever tailed Ellie and Devon - the spy had been all but living in the decoy base for days now. But mentioning that would only set him off in an even worse way - tempers were already fraying.

One knew that things weren’t going well if Sarah had to play peacemaker for Chuck.

She almost snorted at the thought, then focused on the file she was reading again. On her laptop, of course - she didn’t trust the electronics in the base. Not after they had been installed by potential traitors. Chuck had gone over them, as much as he could in any case, but a little precaution never hurt anyone. Well, almost never.

Though she could see with a discreet glance that things hadn’t been settled. Shaw was repeatedly flicking the cap of a USB stick off an on, and Chuck was glowering at whatever he was doing on his computer. “Everyone’s doing their best,” she said, glancing at Shaw.

“What?” He looked up, frowning at her. No, glaring at her for a moment, she noticed. 

“Everyone’s doing their best,” she repeated herself. “It’s just the waiting that gets to you.”

He stared at her for a moment. “Yes.” 

All the warmth of a blizzard. She refrained from frowning in return. 

“We’ll get them, don’t worry,” Chuck added with a smile.

Shaw scoffed at that. “I don’t need a pep talk.”

No, he wouldn’t need a pep talk. People out to avenge their love rarely did. Not that Sarah would mention that Chuck had told her about that - even though Shaw would assume so. “But you need to relax a little. We need to work together for this. Bickering won’t help the mission.”

“I don’t,” he replied. She raised her eyebrows in return, and he frowned some more. “You can count on me doing my duty.”

She didn’t doubt that. “That’s not the problem,” she told him. “Not at all. We’re a team, though, and you sometimes leave the impression that you’d sacrifice every one of us to get to Fulcrum.” 

“Fulcrum’s a threat to national security,” he retorted.

He hadn’t denied her accusation. Sarah gritted her teeth for a moment. “That doesn’t make us expendable,” she told him, as calmly as she could - losing her temper wouldn’t help anyone but Fulcrum.

“Spies are expendable,” he said. 

“No one is expendable,” Chuck blurted out.

Shaw glared at him. Sneered, even. “Would you pick your team members over our country?”

Sarah had never posed that question to Chuck, but she thought he would, if forced to choose. She had done so herself, in a way. And would again. 

Chuck shook his head. “If the only way to save the country were to sacrifice yourself, I have no doubt that any of us would choose so. But that’s not the case.”

“The Agency might not agree, Shaw pointed out - still sneering.

She knew that, of course. From experience. Experience she hoped Chuck wouldn’t have to gain himself.

“In that case, they need to ask for such a sacrifice,” Chuck replied. “You don’t order people to their death. You just don’t. You sacrifice yourself first.” 

Shaw didn’t seem to believe that Chuck was serious - or honest. “And you think people would agree? Volunteer?” He scoffed again. “We’re spies.”

Chuck looked surprised. “Some would - if the mission is important enough.” Like saving the city. Or the world. “But if you think someone will sacrifice you, how can you trust them to work with you?” He shook his head. “Why should anyone be loyal to you if you aren’t loyal to them?” 

Sarah nodded. The Director had taught her that, though she had never found out if he had stuck to that rule himself. She hadn’t wanted to find out, either.

Shaw looked taken aback. “You sound as if you would choose your friends over the mission!”

“If the Agency ordered me to sacrifice them, I would,” Chuck told him, jaw set. “Some things are more important than a mission.”

Seconds passed without Shaw saying anything. He just stared at Chuck silently until he finally nodded. “I see.”

He went back to reading his files, flipping a cap on and off of a USB stick. Sarah looked at Chuck, wordlessly telling him to stop pushing the man. She could only hope that they had gotten through to him. If he tried to sacrifice them, it wouldn’t end well. Not for him.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, March 3rd, 2008**

Another day without an attack, Chuck thought as he stepped into their living room. He snorted - if he had known that one day, he would want to be attacked by traitorous spies… He noticed Sarah looking at him, with not quite raised eyebrows, and shook his head. “Just a stray thought about how I actually want to be attacked.” He chuckled, then frowned as he had another thought. “Does that make me like Shaw?”

“No,” she replied at once. “Shaw wants to destroy Fulcrum at any cost. You want to protect your friends and family.”

That was true. Although Chuck wondered what he would think if Fulcrum had killed Sarah… He shook his head. That wasn’t a thought he wanted to pursue. Sighing, he went into the kitchen. “Want a soda?”

“Just mineral water; it’s late already.”

“Good point.” He put the cola back into the fridge and grabbed the water bottle and two glasses.

She had turned on the TV already, but the news wasn’t showing anything new - with no attack coming, keeping up to date on the news had been the most productive thing they had had to do at the decoy base.

He sighed again. “You know, I can’t decide if I should pity Shaw or scorn him. They killed the woman he loved, but...” He shrugged and took a swallow from his glass, looking at the wall next to the TV screen.

“He’s willing to get others killed just to get his revenge,” Sarah replied.

“Yes. It’s a pity that he didn’t grow up in Sunnydale.” She was puzzled; he could tell. “He would have learned that not losing more people, no matter who they are, is more important than killing the bad guys.”

“Ah.” Sarah nodded, putting down her glass.

“Of course, that usually ends up being the same when demons are involved,” Chuck added. “Still, Shaw’s a tragic case.”

“A tragic case who hasn’t done much to protect Ellie and Devon,” she pointed out.

“He’s got Morris and Flores guarding them.” Although if they weren’t enough… Chuck pressed his lips together.

“They seem competent enough,” Sarah said.

Which sounded a little too much like ‘let’s hope they are enough’ for Chuck’s peace of mind.

He _really_ wished Fulcrum would attack.

Another stray thought hit him as he leaned back and wrapped his arms around Sarah’s shoulders. “You know, there’s nothing about Shaw’s dead girlfriend in the files. Wouldn’t the CIA know about that?”

“Not if they kept it secret.” her smile turned rueful, or so he thought. “They might not have wanted the CIA to know about their relationship.”

“Oh. Because that would’ve broken regulations?”

“No. Because someone might have tried to use it to manipulate them.”

“Someone like Fulcrum?” That was what they did, after all. But at the time, Shaw hadn’t known that they existed.

“Or their own superiors. Or rivals.” Sarah looked at the TV, but she didn’t seem to be watching it. “It’s something many spies would do.”

“That doesn’t sound like a happy working environment,” he told her. “And I would know about that, working at the Buy More.” He forced himself to laugh at his own joke.

“It isn’t all bad,” she replied. “Not all good, either, though.”

Chuck nodded. He was really looking forward to joining the Council.

*****

**California, Burbank, Decoy Base, March 4th, 2008**

“Anything?”

Chuck looked up upon hearing Shaw’s question. The spy hadn’t sounded as tense as last night. But that might change. “Nothing,” he said. “Caridad’s patrolling the area, but she hasn’t reported anything, either.”

“Ah.” Shaw nodded. “I’ll be in the armoury, then. Please call me if anything changes.”

“Uh, sure.” Chuck nodded.

“Thank you.”

That was downright friendly, for Shaw. It would’ve been downright friendly for Casey, too, Chuck thought.

He pulled out his phone and sent a message to Caridad. _Did you find anything?_

Her reply arrived within a second. _No._

Well, succinct. And you couldn’t expect polite phrases in texts.

Though Chuck couldn’t help wondering if the Slayer would’ve been more verbose if Casey had sent the query.

*****

**California, Burbank, Buy More, March 5th, 2008**

“...and that is how you recover your address book, ma’am.” Chuck did his best to smile at the woman. After having had to explain the same thing for ten minutes, it was a little harder than it should’ve been.

“Ah. Like this?” And the woman went and locked herself out of her phone again.

He closed his eyes and walked her through the same procedure again. If Caridad weren’t nearby, he would have started to suspect that the customer was a Fulcrum agent using creative torture on him.

He still wasn’t ruling out that possibility.

Finally, five minutes later, the woman walked away. Probably to lock herself out of her car.

Chuck sighed. At least it had taken his mind off the Fulcrum attack. Which still hadn’t taken place. It was driving him crazy. Perhaps that was Fulcrum’s plan: Wait until everyone had gone stir-crazy, then strike when they were all distracted and worked up. It wasn't actually reaching, he thought. If Fulcrum had the patience…

His phone vibrating in his pocket interrupted his thoughts. He pulled it out. Unknown number? Frowning, he accepted the call.

“Chuck.”

His eyes widened for a moment. Dad! “Yes, you’ve reached Chuck Bartowski,” he said.

“I’ve looked into Shaw,” Dad told him.

Oh. Well, that was only natural, knowing what Chuck knew about Dad. Even though Shaw had actually calmed down after their talk. The spy was still practically living in the decoy base but had become friendlier. Less driven.

“Check the file on your laptop.”

Cuck suppressed a frown. His Dad had gotten into his laptop? Again? He really needed to improve his own security. Again. But Dad sounded concerned. “Sure, give me a moment…” He entered his password. There was a new file. About a female CIA agent. Evelyn Miller. Deceased? Oh… “His girlfriend?”

“Yes. Did you flash?”

“No…” Should he have? Had Dad?

“Ah. Check the circumstances of her death.”

Chuck did so. And gasped. Sarah had killed her! Miller had been a suspected traitor, and Sarah had killed her as her ‘red test’.

“It was buried very deep - if the general hadn’t recently reviewed the files on a computer with one of my backdoors installed, I wouldn’t have found them,” Dad explained. “I don’t think Shaw knows - he didn’t have the clearance.” 

“That’s good,” Chuck managed to say. If Shaw knew about… Chuck’s gaze fell on the USB stick on the Nerd Herd desk. And he flashed.

Another USB stick flashed before his eyes, followed by several files. Fulcrum agents. Couriers.

He blinked, gasping again. 

“He knows. They told him.” He couldn’t believe it.

“The CIA?” Dad asked.

“No.” Chuck shook his head even though Dad couldn’t see him. “Fulcrum sent him their file on her.”

*****


	38. The Traitor Part 1

**California, Burbank, Buy More, March 5th, 2008**

Shaw’s recent friendliness must have been an act, Chuck realised. Sarah had killed his girlfriend so there was no way that the spy would be friendly towards her. Hell, if someone killed Sarah, Chuck would… He gasped. “Oh my God! I have to warn Sarah!” And without tipping off Shaw that Chuck knew that he knew. “I’ll call you back, Dad!”

He hung up and hesitated. Use the radio? No. Shaw would overhear them; he was on the network himself. Call her? Not a good idea, either. If Shaw managed to overhear them… He could’ve bugged the decoy base so thoroughly, he might be able to pick up someone on the phone. Texting. He’d text her. That was safer. She wouldn’t let Shaw see her screen.

_F told S that you killed his gf. Cannot trust him._

That should do it. Chuck hit ‘send’ and took a deep breath. Everything would be alright. Sarah would claim he had sent her some flirty text. Or an invitation to dinner. And once she was back, they could plan how to deal with Shaw.

A minute passed, and no text from Sarah arrived.

Perhaps she was busy. Nothing critical, not like an attack, or she would’ve alerted them. And she might not expect an alert through a text message. Although Chuck would have expected her to expect any kind of alert.

They needed a priority alert on their phones. Something to signal a piece of urgent information. Damn. Hindsight was always 20/20.

Another minute passed. Still no message from Sarah. Chuck pressed his lips together and texted her again.

_Chinese tonight?_

If she had missed his earlier text, then this would make her check.

But another minute passed without an answer.

Damn it, he’d call her! He almost misdialed when his thumb slipped on the speed-dial but he managed to correct himself in time. Then he listened to the ringing tone… but he got the ‘not connected’ message instead.

Oh no!

He dialled Dad. “Dad! I can’t reach Sarah! Her phone is not connected!”

“Checking,” Dad replied. Chuck heard keys click. “Lost connection half an hour ago. Last cell was the one at the decoy base.”

“We’re too late,” Chuck said. “Shaw’s got her already. No! No!”

He got up, stumbling as he tried to walk on his cast, then grabbed the crutches. He had to check. She couldn’t be…

“Chuck?” 

Morgan! “Morgan! I can’t reach Sarah - and Shaw’s turned traitor!”

“What? The guy who hated Fulcrum so much, he wanted to sacrifice us to get them? That was an act?”

“Probably,” Chuck said. “I need to check the decoy base. Her phone was last connected there.”

“Chuck, you shouldn’t…”

Chuck glared at him.

“... never mind!” Morgan pulled his phone out. “Caridad! We need you!”

Chuck, meanwhile, did his best to rush to the parking lot where his car was. It wasn’t far, but with a broken leg, he’d be faster in a car.

“Chuck, wait!” Morgan easily caught up with him.

“I can’t! Sarah needs me!” He was panting as he forced himself to hop towards his car.

“Yes, but you need us.”

“Yeah, Chuck.”

Caridad. Chuck hadn’t even noticed her arriving. “Look, guys…”

The Slayer swept him off his feet and carried him off.

“Hey! My car’s that way!” Chuck almost lost his crutches.

But Caridad wasn’t listening. And Chuck had no chance to escape her grasp.

Then a dark SUV shot around the corner and came to a stop with screeching tyres next to them. “Get the nerd inside,” Casey, the driver, growled. “We’re wasting time.”

Caridad all but threw Chuck on the backbench, then claimed shotgun. Morgan joined Chuck, and Casey drove away before they closed the door.

“Orion informed me,” the NSA agent snapped. “Looks like Shaw couldn’t handle that his squeeze turned traitor. Or he was a traitor all along.”

“But wouldn’t he have gone after me in that case? Fulcrum wants me,” Chuck said as he shifted around so he could buckle in - Casey was driving like a maniac, and he didn’t have Slayer reflexes.

“He might be doing that and using her as bait.”

Oh. Oh no. “I don’t want to get her ear in the mail.” Or her fingers, Or any body part of her. Chuck clenched his teeth. If Shaw hurt her, then he’d…

Casey stopped at the next corner and cut the engine. Chuck gasped. He wouldn’t... “Hey! No!”

The NSA agent turned and glowered at Chuck. And at Morgan. “Stay. In. The. Car.” 

Chuck swallowed and nodded. 

Casey turned to Caridad. “Guard them. This might be a trap. I will check the base.” He got out of the car without waiting for an answer.

For once, Caridad hadn’t protested. She was probably still feeling guilty about Chuck being kidnapped ‘on her watch’, as Vi put it.

“Do you see anyone?” Morgan asked.

“No,” Caridad replied.

Chuck didn’t even bother looking. He was too worried about Sarah. She couldn’t be dead. Shaw would want her as a hostage, wouldn’t he? Or he would want to make her suffer before she died.

Hell, Chuck thought with a horrified chuckle, I’m hoping that the bad guy is a psycho.

Then Casey’s voice came through the radio. “I’ve checked the base. Walker and Shaw are both gone. Her phone’s destroyed.”

Chuck gasped. No. Shaw had… Wait - if Shaw had wanted to kill Sarah, he could’ve done so. If he had destroyed her phone, then that meant that he had kidnapped her. She was still alive! They could still save her!

Chuck turned to Morgan. “We need a locator spell. Now.” Shaw didn’t know about magic. Neither did Fulcrum. They wouldn’t expect this.

“Err… you want Phil for that. He’s the expert.”

Chuck shook his head. “We don’t have time to wait for him. Morgan, you need to do it. Now!”

“Oh… OK. I’ll do my best.”

Chuck suppressed a ‘you better’. Morgan would do his best - and adding more pressure wouldn’t help.

“Should we go to The Castle?” his friend asked.

“Shaw might’ve trapped it,” Chuck pointed out.

“Not on my watch,” Casey grumbled - he had been listening in through the radio, Chuck realised. “I tracked him whenever he was there. Go back, I’ll join you on foot.”

For once, Chuck healthily approved of Casey’s attitude. “To The Castle, then!”

This time, Caridad drove, and it still wasn’t fast enough for Chuck.

A few minutes later, they were in the spy base, and Morgan went to get the emergency supply bag they had stashed there. With the ritual samples taken for just such a case.

“Vi wants to come,” Caridad said as Morgan started setting up the spell.

“No! If Morris and Flores are in on this, that would leave Ellie and Devon unguarded,” Chuck told her.

“I told her that already, but she didn’t want to believe me,” the Slayer complained. “Did you hear him, Vi? I know you did, or have you gone deaf from all the stupid pop music you listen to? Really? Just stay there. Someone has to do it, and you’re the only one who can take out two spies easily.”

She closed the call and shook her head. “I lied, of course, but we need her there.”

“Yes,” Morgan agreed without looking up from his work. “Did you call Phil?”

“I sent a text…”

“He never checks his texts often enough,” Morgan told her. “Call him.”

“Alright, alright.” Chuck heard her grumble something he didn’t catch. “Phil? Did you read the text? Yes. We’re at the Castle, Morgan’s doing a locator spell. Can’t you make it sooner? Alright.” She sighed. “He’ll be here in an hour - I told him to buy a better car.”

“He would have to be able to drive it, too.” Casey had returned. With Bane.

“I closed the shop above. If Shaw turned traitor, then our cover’s already blown.”

Damn, Chuck hadn’t even considered that. But there was nothing they could do about this. Saving Sarah took priority - they could sort out the rest afterwards.

“I’ll check the weapons for tampering,” Casey said, stepping into the armoury.

Chuck frowned - hadn’t he said that he had kept Shaw under observation every time the agent had been in The Castle? But then Morgan started to cast the spell, and Chuck focused on the bowl of water in front of them - even though he wouldn’t be able to see Sarah in it.

He bit his lower lip. He knew Morgan couldn’t rush this - magic going wrong tended to have awful consequences. And Morgan wasn’t the most accomplished mage.

But Chuck still wanted his friend to hurry up.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Morgan stopped chanting and took a deep breath. And blinked. And blinked again as he stared at the bowl. “It’s… it’s grey…”

“Did you mess up?” Caridad asked.

“No… I’m sure I did the spell correctly,” Morgan protested. “Fairly sure. And nothing bad happened, anyway. And the water changed. But it’s grey and doesn’t show me anything. That shouldn’t be happening, not even if she were, uh...” He gasped again, his eyes widening. “Something must be blocking the spell!”

“No! Cast it again!” Chuck protested. “You must have made a mistake!”

*****

“There’s no mistake,” Phil said an hour later, shaking his head. “Something is blocking the spell.”

“See? I didn’t make a mistake!” Morgan sounded aggrieved.

“Sorry,” Chuck mumbled.

“It’s OK. With Sarah…” Morgan trailed off, shrugging.

“But that means…” Chuck swallowed. “If Fulcrum is blocking the spell, then they are working with a mage. Or a demon. They know about Slayers.”

“They might not be aware of whoever - or whatever - is blocking the spell,” Phil pointed out. “They did not block the spell we used to track you, after all. Alternatively, they either were aware before and sacrificed a base merely to spread disinformation, or they only recently became aware of the supernatural world.”

“Or only a few of them are aware of magic,” Bane added.

“Precisely,” Phil agreed.

“And if they know about Slayers, they’d know about Willow. And I don’t know of any mage willing to make her mad for a bunch of spies,” Caridad said.

“Many practitioners are, shall we say, slightly bereft of common sense, vastly overestimate their prowess, or both,” Phil retorted. “But as I said, we have to keep several possibilities in mind.”

Chuck blinked. If Fulcrum wasn’t aware of someone, or something, blocking locator spells…

“I need to do a search!” he exclaimed, pushing his chair towards the base’s computer.

As soon as he had reached the keyboard - banging his leg against the desk in the process - he hurriedly switched the map of Los Angeles and the surrounding area on, then pulled out his phone and connected it to the main computer.

“What are you doing?” Bane asked.

“Shhh,” Morgan whispered, “he’s in the zone.”

“Shaw couldn’t have had much time to move Sarah. Even if he got her into a car without delay, the window between the phone getting destroyed and Morgan’s spell is too short to get very far. Especially if he can’t speed in order to avoid catching the attention of the cops. And there aren’t too many warded places in the area that he could be using,” Chuck explained as he ran the road planner.

“That’s a lot of ‘if’s,” Caridad commented.

Chuck ignored her. It was their best chance to find Sarah. And get Shaw.

“Do you assume that he’s using a known ‘warded location’?” Bane asked.

“I’m assuming that he lucked out and found a location that was already warded without knowing or realising it,” Chuck replied as a red-highlighted area appeared on the map. “That’s the furthest he could’ve reached if everything went perfectly. Now we overlay a map of the warded spots.”

“What are those?” Bane sounded surprised at the number of locations that popped up.

“Some leftovers from Wolfram & Hart, a few demon lairs we cleared but didn’t bother completely wrecking,” Morgan explained, “and some buildings where witches live or do their business.”

“Ah.”

Six locations were in the highlighted area. Chuck tapped the screen and marked them, “Alright. These two are former Wolfram and Hart warehouses - actual warehouses, not monster lairs.” The latter hadn’t survived the clean-up after the battle in Los Angeles.

“If they are renting their space, then it wouldn’t have been too hard to get a container and place it there,” Bane said. “Plenty of space to keep a prisoner.”

Was she speaking from experience? But they could check the warehouses’ client list. Dad could - but Chuck would have to inform him without Bane catching on. 

“That manor there?” Caridad tapped the screen. “That’s a vampire lair. Stupid bloodsucker thought warding it would protect him - and then he doubled down on the idiocy by eating the witch who warded it for him, probably to skimp on paying her. Her elder sister told us the address when she didn’t come home.” She grinned. “Easy kill.”

“And a possible location.” Chuck added another address to the message he’d have to send to Dad to check for new tenants or clients.

“That bungalow here is the home of a reclusive witch,” Phil said. “It’s unlikely that she would let others on the premises if her reaction to my visit is any indication.”

There was a story there, but they didn’t have time to get distracted. “Unlikely then,” Chuck stated.

“But not impossible,” Morgan said.

“Oh, I remember that spot,” Caridad announced, tapping on the screen again. For a moment, Chuck had a horrible vision of the Slayer accidentally breaking the screen by tapping too hard. “That was the lair of a hive of bug demons I cleaned out six months ago.”

“Formicidae Demons”, Phil corrected her. “Not ‘bug demons’, dear.”

“Ants are bugs,” Caridad replied, pouting. “Anyway, they had dug a maze of tunnels underground and lined it with some demony stuff that blocked spells.”

“Their urine, actually,” Phil said.

“Ew! I was stalking through tunnels soaked in demon piss?”

“Focus, guys.” Chuck restrained from yelling. “Low probability of Shaw or Fulcrum using that spot.”

“Yeah, just some rough, winding tunnels. Stinking like an anthill.”

“This is the Coral Hotel,” Chuck said, a little loudly, before Caridad could complain about the ants again. “They really value their guests’ privacy and demand a premium for their discretion. One of the managers was the son of a practitioner and had it warded.” 

“And then he got eaten by a demon when Wolfram & Hart were hired to handle a hostile takeover of the hotel,” Morgan said. 

“They went all-out on the hostile part,” Chuck said. “It’s been repurchased since. But it would be hard to smuggle a kidnapping victim into a room.”

“Not as hard as you think,” Casey said. “They won’t check luggage.”

Oh. “So…” Chuck took a deep breath. “Let’s split up. I’ll check the warehouses; I can do that by hacking their client lists.”

“That might not reveal Fulcrum,” Bane said.

“But it’s a start,” Chuck retorted. “I’ll do the manor as well. Meanwhile, you go and sniff around the hotel.” He nodded at Caridad. Shaw wouldn’t have known to mask Sarah’s scent, and the Slayer could track her that way.

“She’ll need backup. If this is a Fulcrum operation, Shaw won’t be alone,” Casey said.

“OK,” Chuck said. “You, Caridad, Kirsten and Morgan go there.” That team should be able to handle a Fulcrum base. And Chuck would be able to contact Dad without Bane noticing. “Phil and I do more research here.” It was all he could do, with his broken leg, anyway. And Dad would do most of it.

But all that mattered was saving Sarah.

*****

“Alright,” Chuck said ten minutes later - mostly to himself; Phil was on the phone speaking to Vi, and Dad was busy hacking the hotel. “Let’s see what kind of clients rented space in those warehouses.” 

About a dozen firms showed up, and any of them could be a front for Fulcrum. Even those Chuck recognised as real firms could’ve been fakes just using the names. But thanks to liability cases and insurance, the warehouse owners kept track of what was stored on their property. Detailed enough, at least, for Chuck to discard most clients as not suspicious. That still left two clients who had rented enough space to hide a kidnapping victim or three - and which were listed as import/export firms with entries and web pages so bland and bare, any cop would have grown suspicious.

Though that didn’t mean they were Fulcrum fronts - they could be drug cartel fronts. Or fences. Or even demons trying to be clever. Chuck would have to hack the websites, see how old they were, and what kind of traffic and business they actually did. Of course, odds were that Caridad would be passing by the warehouses before he would make any headway. But he would be doing something instead of just waiting with a broken leg for the others to save Sarah.

But before he could even get started, an alert went off inside the base. “Perimeter alert?” He quickly switched the main screen to the security cameras covering the base’s entrances. The main cameras didn’t show anything off. But the backup ones showed a different picture: Half a dozen black-clad spies had broken into the Wienerlicious and were already at the concealed door to the base itself!

“It seems we’re in a bit of pickle,” Phil commented.

“Shaw must have told Fulcrum about the base,” Chuck said, clenching his teeth. As they had feared. “At least he didn’t know about the secondary defences, or they’d already broken in without us noticing anything.” But he had likely compromised the radio network so they couldn’t use their comms.

Chuck tapped out a text to the others - in case Casey hadn’t been alerted already by the security system: _Base under attack. 6 spies._

It was answered immediately: _Hold out, OTW._

‘Hold out’- that was easier said than done. Chuck pushed off the desk and rolled his chair into the armour. “We’ll have to keep them off for ten minutes.” Less if Casey let Caridad drive.

“Should I call Vi?” Phil asked, almost conversationally, as he grabbed a modern crossbow from the rack - CIA issue; apparently, even spies could use crossbows from time to time.

“No. This could be a distraction to get Ellie and Devon,” Chuck replied. He grabbed an SMG and a pistol with a couple spare magazines. Then he eyed the flamethrower. Nothing said ‘stay away’ like a stream of fire coming at you.

He grabbed the flamethrower as well. At least he could use it easily while sitting on his chair. After taking a gas mask, too, and handing one to Phil, he wheeled himself over to the stairs, stopping at the table to pick up the remote for the claymores in the ceiling.

Phil didn’t comment about Chuck’s choice of weapons - but he had grabbed a shotgun as well as the crossbow. “I did some hunting in my youth.”

Chuck nodded and checked the back entrance - which also served as an emergency exit - was still clear on both cameras. “I would have expected a pincer attack,” he commented.

“Perhaps they lack the men for such a stratagem?”

“But they could force us to split up and would be able to use twice their numbers in chokepoints,” Chuck pointed out. Shaw knew about the backdoor. So what was Fulcrum’s angle? “Maybe they want to drive us out and are lying in ambush at the backdoor,” he speculated.

“That seems plausible. They must be aware of the charges placed inside the base.” Phil took cover behind a console and aimed his crossbow at the top of the stairs. 

“That means they either hope to surprise us completely - or they don’t plan to enter at all!” Chuck said. Talking like this was a good way to keep calm, he realised. Especially with Phil not even being ruffled by the imminent attack.

Phil nodded. “I concur. They will try to, as the saying goes, ‘smoke us out’.”

“Masks up, then.” Chuck hastily donned his gas mask, then stared at the screen. The spies had finished picking the locks on the door now. He swallowed and flicked the cap off the triggers for the mine. Red was the one on the stairs to Wienerlicious. God, this would be messy!

The door was opened silently - Fulcrum was still trying to sneak inside, Chuck realised. Taking a deep breath, he put his thumb on the trigger. He had to wait until all of them were on the stairs.

But they didn’t enter - they grabbed cylinders from their pockets. Gas grenades! Or worse! 

He pushed the button.

Nothing happened.

He pushed it a second time. And a third. Still nothing. It must have been Shaw!

Several cylinders bounced down the staircase, already spewing smoke - tear gas, most likely.

Chuck dropped the remote and grabbed his flamethrower. Then he whirled, and kicked out against the wall, sending him rolling backwards, towards the stairs, on his chair.

And as soon as he had his flamethrower pointed up the stairs, he pulled the trigger.

The flames cut through the growing cloud of tear gas and reached the door above - and the gap there. Due to the cloud of tear gas, Chuck couldn’t see if he had hit anyone - but he heard screaming.

He glanced at the big screen behind him - the gas hadn’t spread so far - and winced. Two spies were on the ground, burning and thrashing. Vampires would have been dusted already, but humans… He shook his head. They wanted to kill him and his friends. And Sarah.

He still felt sick.

And the tear gas was still spreading.

“They’ve closed the door,” Phil told him, and Chuck pushed off and rolled over to the main console before he got lost in the expanding cloud. If he turned the ventilation up a notch, the tear gas should be dealt with… eventually. 

“What about the backdoor?” he asked as he fiddled with the controls.

“I don’t see any change there,” the Watcher replied.

Did that mean that Fulcrum’s spies were sticking to their plan? Chuck grabbed his smartphone and called Morgan.

“Yes? We’re almost… Watch out for the truck! … we’re almost there.”

“We repelled one attack, but they should have an ambush force ready at the backdoor. Two enemies down, four left inside Wienerlicious,” Chuck told him - and, so he hoped, the others. Morgan should have his phone on speakers. “How long until you’re here?”

“Five more minutes. Hold… Watch the lane, Caridad!”

Probably one more attack, at least, Chuck thought.

“They’re moving,” Phil said. “And there is the second group.”

Chuck checked the screen. The four surviving spies were approaching the door again. And half a dozen more were already at the backdoor, working on the locks… no, placing charges!

“We need to take cover!” he yelled, looking around. “The armoury!”

Before Chuck could wheel himself over, Phil grabbed the backrest of his chair and pushed him.

A moment later, the charges on the backdoor went off, blowing a cloud of dust into the base. Shots rang out - automatic fire, long bursts - and Chuck saw bullets hit the wall opposite the exit. More shots from above followed - they seemed to be firing blindly. Suppressive fire - or something.

“We should’ve trapped the room,” he muttered as he slid off the chair and took up a position at the armoury door. He glanced at his smartphone, which showed the feeds from the interior cameras. Even with the smoke and dust, he could make out movement.

“I’ll take a note for the next time we’re under siege,” Phil said, pressing himself against the wall on the other side of the doorframe, across from Chuck.

Chuck had time to snort. Then the enemy spies entered the base proper, and he leaned around the corner and fired the flamethrower again.

More screams. He ducked around the corner again. Phil fired his shotgun once, twice, then took cover as well as Fulcrum returned fire. 

A few more minutes, Chuck told himself. Help was on the way. They only had to hold out a little longer. But they were trapped - there was no way out. And the enemies would be moving closer while they kept shooting. Close enough to aim a grenade, probably. Flashbang if they wanted them alive, frag if they wanted them dead.

Damn. Chuck could even see them moving out of the thinning cloud of smoke and dust, now. Time to close the door and hope the others arrived before they cracked the door - or blew it up. Or… Yes.

He clenched his teeth and reached out for the door controls with his free hand, the other holding his smartphone. There was a spy approaching, grenade already in hand. He was almost there. Almost at the door… his arm cocked back…

Chuck hit the ‘close’ button, his fingerprint releasing the door, and it started to close just when the spy let the grenade fly.

He held his breath, but the door closed in time to stop the grenade - it bounced off it, as Chuck saw on the phone.

And exploded in the middle of the main room.

More screams followed.

Chuck hit the door controls a second time, then grabbed his flame thrower and stuck it around the corner once more, blindly shooting fire at the enemy. Phil did the same with his shotgun before Chuck closed the door again.

They hadn’t hit many, as far as Chuck could see - it was hard, with more smoke filling the room - the furniture was supposed to be fireproof, but with the flamethrower fuel sticking to it...

The others better hurry, Chuck thought, or we’ll end up burning to death here.

At least they wouldn’t suffocate - the ventilation system was working fine and designed to handle gases. It was a mixed blessing, however - it would also fuel any fire with more oxygen. And there were quite a few fires burning already. “I guess the CIA doesn’t quite follow building codes,” Chuck muttered.

“I doubt that any building code is rated against flamethrowers,” Phil replied. “I gather, though, that this chamber is quite fireproof?”

“Yes. It should be, at least,” Chuck said. Well, if the room wasn’t fireproof, it would be over quickly. Even if the explosives didn’t go off from the heat, the ammunition would. And there was a lot of ammunition in the armoury.

Phil nodded. “Then let us hope the building doesn’t collapse onto us.”

Chuck froze. He hadn’t considered that. If the whole building came down… that would kill the ventilation system. They would be buried alive. And suffocate. Damn. He grabbed his phone again. “Morgan? We’re holed up in the armoury. The base is starting to burn.”

“We’re here. Engaging the enemy,” his friend replied.

It would have sounded professional and reassuring - if Chuck hadn’t heard the same sentence so often during Call of Duty matches. And those could fail quite spectacularly.

“They’re here,” he told Phil.

“Good. What’s the situation in the base?”

Chuck switched apps. “Uh… smoky.”

“Ah.” Chuck could almost see the older man’s eyebrows rise despite the gas mask.

“I can’t see anything any more,” he defended himself.

“The enemy will be similarly hampered, then. As will our relief forces.”

“Yes.” Chuck could only hope that his friends would be able to deal with the situation. He focused on the smartphone’s screen again. The room was full of smoke, but with a little luck, he might catch a glimpse of Fulcrum’s agents anyway. Of course, the same trick wouldn’t work twice on them, but… it was all he had left. That and waiting. While Sarah was in danger.

Suddenly, there was movement on the screen - something cut through the smoke, sending bodies flying. A tentacle? No! It was water, Chuck realised with relief. A stream of water powerful enough to bowl over trained agents.

“Our friends brought fire hoses,” he said, blinking.

“An obvious tactic in hindsight,” Phil commented.

“Quite,” Chuck said, as dryly as he could.

Less than a minute later, the enemy spies had been taken down - or out, Chuck couldn’t tell from his phone - and the hoses were turned on the remaining fires. 

“It’s safe to come out now,” Morgan told him over the phone.

After a last check - it did look safe - Chuck hit the door controls again, relieved to see it working, and pushed himself to his feet. Or foot, singular.

“Chuck! Phil!” Caridad rushed over. “Are you alright?”

“We’re not any worse than we were before, my dear,” Phil replied. “Thank you for the timely rescue.”

Chuck nodded in agreement. “Yes, thank you.”

Casey appeared, wielding a hose. “Get a move on and leave through the backdoor - we’re setting the kitchen on fire upstairs; someone is bound to have called 911.”

That would keep the base from getting discovered - Fulcrum hadn’t blown up the door above, after all.

Morgan handed him his crutches - they had survived with a few scratches - and Chuck limped out of the armoury. The sight of burned bodies made him wince. He had burned them. He had killed three or four people with his flamethrower. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear their screams. And if he removed his gas mask, he’d smell the stench. Such a… he blinked.

“Shaw didn’t tell them about the flamethrowers,” he blurted out. “They hadn’t been prepared for the flamethrowers - they had worn body armour, and that was useless against it.”

“Bastard might be playing games, Casey growled.

“It’s also possible that our assailants dismissed the claim - or decided to risk it,” Phil replied.

“They could’ve come wearing flameproof suits,” Chuck retorted. “Pretend to be the fire brigade.”

“That would have been a good cover,” Bane added - she was changing into her Wienerlicious uniform, Chuck noted. Probably going to handle the emergency services which would be arriving any minute.

“Let’s get a move on,” Casey repeated himself. “We need to go.”

“What about the prisoners?” Chuck asked while he started to move towards the exit.

“We’ll take them with us,” Casey said.

“All of them?” Chuck had killed three or four, so that would leave… He took another look at the room. Oh. There were four spies on the ground with their limbs bound. The others… Chuck’s friends hadn’t stuck to using hoses in the fighting.

At least, he thought, snorting against his will, with Caridad busy carrying the prisoners, I won’t be carried outside again.

Then his phone vibrated. But who would call him… He balanced on one leg and one crutch and pulled it out of his pocket.

It was Shaw.

“Shaw,” Chuck said through clenched teeth after accepting the call and putting it on speaker. He glanced at Morgan, pointing at his friend’s phone and mouthing ‘call Dad’. Bane was upstairs, so this should be safe enough.

“Hi, Chuck. Had some excitement in The Castle?”

Was the agent watching? Chuck looked around. If Shaw was tapped into the main surveillance system… but then, Fulcrum would have known what they had been planning. “You could say that,” he replied.

“Could be watching from afar,” Casey mumbled. 

“Or just keeping track of the police and fire brigade calls,” Morgan added, holding up his phone. Dad was listening, then. Good.

“Heh, using British understatement, are you? Taking out a dozen trained spies is no small feat. Especially for a new spy. Though you aren’t so new any more, are you?”

Chuck gritted his teeth at Shaw’s tone. “Oh, you know - I’m a proponent of the castle doctrine.”

Shaw actually laughed. Well, Casey snorted. Once. “You’re definitely not a rookie - joking after such a fight?”

The alternative would be worse. “You didn’t warn your new friends. They walked straight into our trap.”

Caridad returned. “Hurry up,” she said - and picked up Chuck.

He barely managed to avoid gasping when he was, once more, carried around in a rather undignified manner. But if Shaw commented on that, they’d know he was watching…

He didn’t, though. “I did warn them, but they decided to dismiss my warnings - although I might not have been sufficiently detailed. You used the flamethrowers, didn’t you?”

Was he fishing for information? Or trying to make them think he didn’t know? “We used a lot, but mainly we used Fulcrum’s own stupidity against them. They’re not exactly the best kind of employer, you know,” he said as Caridad put him down in a van. Next to the prisoners.

“Oh, I’m not working for them. Our goals merely align. Temporarily.” Shaw sounded smug.

“And what do you want?” Chuck asked as the others got into the van, Casey taking the wheel.

“Many things. But I’ll settle for you.”

“Me?” Chuck’s eyebrows rose. Why him? Dumb question, he realised a moment later. Sarah had killed the man’s girlfriend. And Chuck was Sarah’ boyfriend.

“Yes. We’ll meet. Just you and me. If anyone else shows up, Walker dies.” Shaw’s tone had lost all fake levity.

Chuck’s stomach dropped. There was the threat he had been dreading. At least that meant that Sarah was still alive. Probably. It was a trap, of course. Shaw wanted his revenge. On Sarah. Chuck would only be a means to an end. A bloody end. There was only one answer to that.

“Alright. Where?”

“Watch this channel. See you soon.” And the fake levity was back.

The call ended. Chuck turned to Morgan. Or rather, to his friend’s phone. “Where is he?”

“Here.” A message with coordinates appeared on Chuck’s phone a moment later. Dad had come through.

“He won’t be there any more,” Casey growled. “Burner phone, dropped as soon as the call ended. Might have even used a relay to make the call.”

“Yes,” Dad’s voice sounded from the phone. “But I’m refining my search parameters. If he’s using standard CIA procedures, I’ll have him soon.”

“So, you’ll need to stall him,” Caridad told Chuck, “until we have Sarah back.”

“He won’t take her with him to the meeting,” Casey said. “He’ll stash her somewhere. Dead or alive. Dead, probably - no chance of escape.”

Chuck pressed his lips together. “No. This is about her. He wants me to hurt her. She killed his girlfriend, he wants to kill me. While she lives. Killing her first would ruin his vengeance. Or something.”

“He sounded like a psycho,” Caridad commented.

“Yes,” Morgan agreed. “Lacking the cackling and the death threats, but otherwise... psycho villain 101.”

“Which means,” Phil chimed in, “that he isn’t acting rationally.”

“But still predictably,” Chuck insisted. “He wants to avenge his girlfriend. And for that, he needs Sarah and me. Alive.”

“He could kill you and show her your corpse, then kill her,” Casey said.

That was possible, but… “No,” Chuck said. “That would be too simple. He wants to kill me in front of her.”

“Are you willing to bet your life on it?” the agent asked.

“Yes.”

*****

**Los Angeles, March 5th, 2008**

The light hurt as soon as Sarah opened her eyes. She felt nauseous as well. Drugged, she realised. She had been drugged. And the last thing she remembered…

“Finally awake again, Agent Walker?”

She knew that smug voice. “Shaw. So Fulcrum turned you.” She took in her surroundings. Hotel room. Luxury hotel. Curtains were drawn so she could see out the windows to find out where they were. She was on a queen-sized bed. Her wrists and ankles were tied. And the traitor was sitting on the armchair in the corner. And smiling at her.

He inclined his head, tilted to the side. “Not really. I didn’t join them - but my and their goals align, as far as you and your team are concerned. Mostly, at least.”

What? She frowned. That didn’t make any sense. Unless… “So you sold your soul?” If he wasn’t working for Fulcrum, then he probably was working for a demon or another supernatural threat.

He chuckled. “How poetic. I wouldn’t have you taken for such a patriot.”

What?

“You think I was suborned by a foreign power?” He laughed, shaking his head.

That was the third possibility. She didn’t answer him, though. It was obvious that he wanted to talk. To gloat. And a good spy let his enemy talk. Even disinformation was intel.

“No, this is personal.” His smile vanished, replaced by a glare as he bared his teeth at her. “You don’t even know, do you? You killed her, and you don’t even know what you did.”

Oh. That kind of personal. Sarah understood. “Who was she?”

“Evelyn. Evelyn Miller. The woman I wanted to marry.”

Sarah knew that name. Miller had been a traitor Sarah had killed for her red test.

“Ah, you remember.” Shaw was smiling again. Unless he was a superb actor, he had gone mad.

Sarah suppressed a shiver. This was worse than she had thought. The odds of her surviving this were low. “So, you want to avenge a traitor.”

He struck her, his palm hitting her cheek, hard.

“I will avenge the love of my life, Agent Walker.” He leaned forward, sneering at her. “And you will get to watch.”

Sarah felt her heart skip a beat. No! Not Chuck!

“Oh, yes. I’ll kill your love. An eye for an eye.”

“You won’t get to him,” she spat. Chuck was with the others. And Shaw didn’t know about the Slayers.

“I won’t have to. He’ll come to me. Of course, he’ll try to trick me. Ambush me. But thanks to Fulcrum’s local team, I’ve got his number.”

*****


	39. The Traitor Part 2

**California, Los Angeles, March 5th, 2008**

“You think you know him?” Sarah asked, putting a little scorn into her question. Shaw wouldn’t know about magic, and about Chuck’s real history - Fulcrum thought he was a cyborg.

“I don’t think - I do.” Shaw grinned. “Fulcrum sent me their data on him and his friends. And I have been studying him, of course.”

“You think you ‘got Chuck’s number’ in a few days?” She scoffed. The longer she kept the spy talking, the better. The others would be tracking her - with a spell.

“Of course I did. Did he fool you?” Shaw chuckled. “He almost fooled me. But I’m not in love with him.”

“What?”

“Oh, please - it’s obvious that you’ve fallen for him. Fallen for his act.” Shaw shook his head with a pitying expression. “With your experience, you should’ve known better. He’s good, but not that good. But I guess emotions screw up everyone - I certainly didn’t even suspect Evelyn had been a member of Fulcrum until I read her real files.”

She didn’t need the madman’s pity or fake sympathy. He was wrong, anyway. “You think he manipulated me?” She didn’t have to fake her scorn.

“You still deny it? Do you really think that he’s just a civilian who got caught up in a CIA affair? Accidentally got the Intersect in his head?” He snorted. “The CIA tried to implant the Intersect into several spies - none of them survived.”

She hadn’t known that.

He noticed her reaction - his grin widened. “Indeed. Data being encrypted in a series of images, delivered through a neural-optical interface - and that happening accidentally? It never worked deliberately so far. Chuck was the only one to survive the experiment because he’s got an actual computer in his head already.”

Oh. “The Initiative,” she said.

“Exactly! The project focused on cybernetic augmentation. ‘Better. Stronger. Faster.’ And so on. That’s what you get when the army gets to direct the research. But we’re spies - we know that information and analysis are the key to victory. That’s what the Intersect is all about, after all. And the Initiative managed to put computer chips into brains - exactly what the Intersect needed to be used in the field.”

That was an impressive deduction. Completely wrong, of course - she had to keep him on that path. “And you think having a computer chip in his brain turned Chuck into a superspy who seduced me?”

“Oh, no - the Initiative did that. Chuck’s been working for them for years - after the project had supposedly been shut down.” Shaw shook his head once more. “And with such a flimsy cover story - as if anyone would believe that the Agency would allow the Limeys to run an operation on our soil!”

“London would be amused that you think so,” she retorted.

“London does nothing that’s not cleared by Washington,” he said, sneering at her. “The old man’s not even British but a retired spy who must have lived in England for a few years. Almost gone native, probably.”

“So you think that Chuck’s a cybernetic superspy working for a rogue CIA operation.”

“It fits the data. The way he killed Fulcrum’s teams - burned the lot of them alive - confirms it. No civilian would use a flamethrower. Hell, no spy would. But someone trained by a secret, originally army, research project? A project where you might have to dispose of a cyborg?” He grinned again. “He’s been trained as a handler for the other augmented operatives - all girls. And that’s how he learned to handle you.” He laughed. 

The man was delusional. But that would work to her advantage. Chuck wasn’t like that at all. Sarah knew that better than anyone else. “And how will that allow you to kill him? If he’s been manipulating me all this time, he won’t risk himself for me.” But the fool would. Even with a broken leg.

“Oh, but he doesn’t know that I know, so he’ll be planning to exploit my supposed ignorance to kill me. But since I know that, I’ll use his own trap against him.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I? Or are you just unwilling to admit that you’ve been thoroughly played? That you’re not a spy, but a mark?” He stood. “Don’t worry. You’ll get to see the proof that I’m right. Before you die.”

She clenched her teeth and glared at him as he approached her. If he moved a little closer, she could kick him, even with her hands and feet bound like this.

But the man was ready for her move and blocked her kick, then hit her in the stomach.

“Predictable.” He scoffed again as he picked up his phone. “Like Chuck.”

*****

**California, Los Angeles, East Side, March 5th, 2008**

“It’s a trap,” Casey said as he drove through traffic with an almost Slayer-like attitude. 

“Of course it’s a trap,” Chuck told him, resisting to imitate Admiral Ackbar. “But by playing along, we’ll have the best chance to save Sarah.”

“We’ll be playing into Shaw’s hands,” the NSA agent retorted. “He wants to kill you.”

“But he wants to kill me to hurt Sarah,” Chuck pointed out. “And knowing that, we can turn the tables on him.”

“He ordered you to an abandoned construction site - with wide-open spaces so we can’t sneak up on him,” Morgan said.

“Or so he can snipe him from afar,” Casey grunted.

That was a possibility as well, of course. Chuck tried not to wince. If all Shaw wanted was to kill him, then that would be one of the easiest ways to achieve that. But there were even easier ones. Like bombs. No, this was personal for Shaw. That meant he would want to show off. “That’s why I’m wearing a vest,” he said.

“That’s why he’ll aim for your head,” Casey retorted. “He’s a traitor, but a top spy. And on crutches, you’ll be an easy target.”

“We’re not going to underestimate him,” Chuck said. “But the priority is saving Sarah. And we’ve got an ace in the hole - magic.”

Casey scoffed. “The locator spell is still being blocked.”

“Well, yes,” Chuck admitted. Phil had informed them a few minutes ago. “But that means Sarah isn’t moving.”

“And Caridad should have arrived at the hotel by now,” Morgan said, fiddling with his phone. “I’ll call her. Caridad?”

They heard her through the speakers. “I’ve picked up her scent here, but it’s faint.”

So she was in the hotel. Just as they had assumed. Now all they had to do was to stall Shaw until Caridad had saved Sarah. Chuck smiled, relieved.

Until his phone vibrated. It was Phil.

“Sarah’s in a car, moving,” the Watcher told him.

No. Chuck hissed. So close… 

“He’s coming here,” Casey said.

“I can intercept him!” Caridad all but yelled - of course she would have heard Phil’s voice through two phones.

“No. He’ll spot you and shoot Walker,” Casey grunted.

“Head towards us,” Chuck told her. “We’ll need you here.”

“On my way!” Caridad yelled, followed by: “Outta my way!”

Morgan winced at something only he could hear. Probably the sound of stumbling or bowled-over pedestrians.

Well, she was prioritising saving Sarah. Chuck couldn’t fault her for that. “We’ll continue with the plan,” he told Casey. “Drop me off at the entrance to the area and be ready to intervene as soon as you get an opportunity.”

“That’s suicide.”

They had gone over this before. “Someone has to play bait, and I’m good at it. And I’ve got the Intersect.”

“Walker wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself for her.”

“And I don’t want to sacrifice her.”

Casey grunted but kept driving towards the construction area. A few more minutes, Chuck estimated.

“Uh.” Morgan suddenly spoke up.

Chuck knew that tone. Something had gone wrong. “Morgan?”

“Kirsten sent me a text. ‘Trouble. Police.’” He looked up. “I can’t reach her.”

“Police?” Had something gone wrong at the Wienerlicious? Last Chuck had heard, Bane had been handling the police and the fire brigade.

“Trouble,” Casey spat. “We’re being tailed by a chopper.”

Chuck leaned out of the window and looked up. “It’s the police.” Police trouble. Trouble with the police. “Shaw must have framed us. This is the trap!”

Then he heard the sirens behind them.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, March 5th, 2008**

Sarah wriggled and struggled, but Shaw was a pro - she couldn’t get loose. She was stuck in the back of his SUV as they drove through Los Angeles.

“Oh, look - the LAPD is closing in on your friends.” Shaw sounded amused. “I think I saw Chuck’s head for a moment. The quality of the cameras onboard the chopper are, unfortunately, not up to CIA standard.”

She wanted to bash his head in. Wipe that smug grin from his face and kill him with her bare hands. “It could be anyone,” she retorted. She knew better, of course - this was Casey’s SUV.

He laughed. “You don’t believe that.”

She didn’t deign to answer that. “Do you really think the LAPD will kill Chuck for you?”

“What? Oh, you don’t understand.” He chuckled again. “A few cops against your friends? The LAPD won’t stand a chance.”

So they would be a distraction. Keep the group busy while Shaw made his move.

“But they’ll be enough of a nuisance so Chuck will have to show his true colours. I’m looking forward to seeing how he’ll get rid of them. They won’t give up otherwise - can’t let dangerous terrorists escape, can we?” The traitor chuckled once more.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, East Side, March 5th, 2008**

“Alright. Don’t panic. This isn’t a catastrophe. We’re just being hunted by the LAPD. And they have a helicopter. And that sounds like half a dozen patrol cars,” Chuck mumbled. “Oh my gosh! They’ll send the SWAT as well!” Perhaps panicking was the logical response?

“We’re in Counterstrike, and they see us as the terrorists!” Morgan at least sounded as if he were panicking.

“We’ll have to get rid of the chopper,” Casey said. “Grab the machine gun and shoot it down.”

“What? No!” Chuck blurted out. “We can’t kill cops! Shouldn’t kill cops, I mean!”

“They will be trying to kill us, Bartowski,” Casey snapped as he took a sharp turn. “And we can’t get away while the chopper is tracking us. They’ll herd us into an ambush.”

“Uh…” That was correct. Probably. The LAPD was useless when it came to dealing with demons - in the ‘behead and burn them’ way, not the other kind of dealing - but they weren’t quite as useless when dealing with criminals. Not the best there, either, though, but… “Casey!” Chuck yelled. “Stick to the smaller roads! Avoid the highways! And make your way to the Badlands!”

“What are you planning?”

“We have to lose the cops, and I know where!” Chuck yelled. The cops didn’t go to the Badlands. Gunn had said so often enough during the Wolfram & Hart crisis.

“You better know what you’re doing,” Casey grunted as he took another tight turn and accelerated.

“Of course I do,” Chuck retorted. “I think.”

Casey gave him a side-glance, but the man had to keep his attention on the road.

“Caridad says she’s coming as well!” Morgan told them.

“Uh… no, no! You have to get Sarah,” Chuck said.

“I don’t know where she is!” he heard Caridad yell through Morgan’s speakerphone.

“You will soon!” Chuck replied - and dialled Dad. “Dad?”

“Chuck, this is a mess. Shaw framed you and your friends for terrorism. They sent the whole SWAT after you.”

“I know.” Well, he had deduced that. “But you need to frame him for kidnapping. Set the LAPD on him - Phil can give you the car’s description. If you hack the LAPD, you can send cops after him!”

“I can do that. Divert some of them from hunting you.”

“Yes!” That was even better. Chuck nodded, though Dad couldn’t see him.

“Shaw will massacre the cops,” Casey said through clenched teeth. 

“They just have to find him - Caridad can deal with him,” Chuck replied. Although… this was the LAPD they were dealing with. “Tell them to stay back and wait for SWAT once they found him, Dad!”

“Got it, son.”

Good. Now they just had to… 

Casey cursed and drove the SUV on the sidewalk, sending a dumpster flying as the car left the road. Another bump and a crash followed. Chuck felt his heart miss a beat, but it was just a fire hydrant sharing the dumpster’s fate. And then they were past the two patrol cars.

“Oh crap oh crap oh crap!” Morgan muttered behind them.

“The chopper’s still tracking us,” Casey snarled. “They won’t make the same mistake again.”

“I’m working on that,” Chuck said. If only he knew how!

“Work faster!”

Wait! They could switch cars in a parking garage! No - not while being chased. The cops would surround the garage and stop every car. Damn. And they were still sticking out like a sore thumb… Oh! “I’ll call you back, Dad!” he ended the call and hit a quick search on his laptop - he needed every damn limousine service in the city!

He was just starting to order a dozen black SUVs to come fetch a ‘wedding party’ right now when Casey interrupted him. 

“Time’s running out, Bartowski!” 

Chuck looked up, and his eyes widened. There was another roadblock - and this time, they had blocked the sidewalks, too!

“Hold on tight!” Casey yelled - the man sounded almost joyful, Chuck realised as he grabbed for the handholds.

Then they crashed into the cop cars - and broke through. Both cars in the centre spun around and crashed into other cars as they passed. But they were through!

Though the helicopter was still tracking them!

Chuck ended the order and called Dad again. “Dad! Did you get Shaw framed?”

“They’re hunting his car now. As soon as they find him, I’ll inform you.”

“Inform Caridad. We’re a little busy here. You wouldn’t be able to hack a helicopter in flight, would you?”

“Sorry, son, you’re on your own there. I tried to have it diverted, but the pilot checked with the chief, and the order was countermanded.”

Damn. And his plan of ordering decoy SUVs would take too long And, he, belatedly, realised, would endanger civilians - the LAPD wasn’t exactly shy about shooting first.

Damn and damn again.

Then his phone rang once more. Shaw again. Chuck took the call. “Shaw? We’re going to be delayed a little bit. Traffic is murder.”

He heard the spy snort. “You can deal with murder, can you?”

Chuck frowned but forced himself to keep the levity. “Physics is a bitch, and I’m currently slightly handicapped, as you know, so I can’t just walk.”

“‘Physics is a bitch’?” Shaw sounded confused.

The longer he kept the man talking, the better. Dad would be tracking Shaw already - and even daisy chain setups could be traced if you could sort out the calls. “You know, the thing about mass and Newton - I can’t exactly drive through walls or cars, and pushing them to the side doesn’t always work. Physics.”

He had to clench his teeth as Casey demonstrated the truth of what Chuck had just said by playing bumper car with a patrol car that had managed to catch up to them - must have cut them off somehow. Chuck really hoped that the cops had used seat belts - the way that parked van had stopped them...

“Funny,” Shaw replied in a tone that clearly showed he didn’t think it actually was. “We both know you can go through these obstacles.”

What? What did Shaw mean? He couldn’t… Chuck swallowed. “On crutches?”

The other spy snorted. “Don’t try to play games, Chuck. Kill the cops and come to the meeting spot, or Walker dies.”

“Don’t, Chuck!”

That was Sarah! She was still alive! Chuck smiled despite the situation.

“Shut up, Walker.”

“Don’t do it, ChuckAHHH!”

“Shaw!” Chuck snarled.

“Sounded like a taser,” Casey snapped.

A taser. That wasn’t too bad. Chuck was about to comment, but then gasped - there was a police van blocking the street in front of them! An armoured one! Casey cursed and pulled a u-turn, but now they were driving towards the pursuing patrol cars. And Casey wasn’t slowing down - he was speeding up. As if he were playing chicken! Chuck’s eyes widened. Casey _was_ playing chicken!

And the cops veered away in the last second.

“Here’s the deal, Chuck;” Shaw said as Casey turned into a side alley - had the spy waited until they were clear? He was watching through the cop cameras, wasn’t he? “You kill those cops after you, and anyone between you and the meeting spot, or I’ll kill Walker. Show me what you can do. What you will do for her.”

Chuck drew a hissing breath - not quite a gasp. Shaw wanted him to kill cops? Civilians? He could do it. And he wouldn’t have to kill many cops. Just downing the helicopter would allow them to lose the rest of the cops. And the helicopter wasn’t a military model - they could shoot it down. Especially with the Intersect. How many cops were in the chopper, anyway? Two? Three? For Sarah? He could do it.

He shook his head, clenching his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut. No. He couldn’t. “No.”

“No?” Shaw snarled. “You’d let Walker die? Sarah?”

“I’m… I’m not going to murder people for you,” Chuck retorted, blinking to clear his eyes.

“You’re a spy, Chuck. Killing people is what we do.”

“Killing enemy spies. Not murdering innocents,” Chuck corrected him.

“Hah! You know better than that. All of us have killed innocents for a mission. Sarah murdered Evelyn!”

“She was working for Fulcrum,” Chuck snapped back.

“You know how it works - you’re never certain. Someone makes a call, and people die. Some of them are innocent. You know that.”

“I’m not going to murder innocents.” Chuck shook his head. This was going badly, but he couldn’t give in. He gasped. He could fool Shaw. Make it appear as if he killed cops… No. They had no time to set up something, and Shaw was watching. If they hacked the cops’ cameras, he’d know...

“So all your claims that you’d choose your friends over the mission was a lie?” Shaw spat.

What? “That was about _not_ sacrificing your friends,” Chuck told him. “You know, the opposite of killing.”

“Really? What about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few?”

Chuck blinked. Shaw was a Trekkie? “That was about sacrificing yourself, not others.”

“What?”

What? Oh. “Wrath of Khan, the movie,” Chuck explained.

“We’re not talking about fucking movies here! You go and kill those damned cops, or I will fucking cut Walker into pieces and mail you the recording!” Shaw snapped in a staccato. “Do you understand, Chuck?”

Chuck froze. Yes, he did. His lips trembled. Sarah… Damn it. He had to… he couldn’t. He drew a short, gasping breath. Not a sob. He blinked, then wiped his eyes. No. No. No.

“No, I won’t.”

*****

Sarah hurt - Shaw had tased her to shut her up. Her whole body hurt. But she could deal with pain. Had dealt with worse. But she didn’t want to die. Not now. Not by getting tortured to death while she was helplessly bound in the back of an SUV. At least Chuck would be safe. She could only hear one half of the conversation, but Shaw’s increasingly angry words were enough to know that Chuck wasn’t giving in to the traitor. That meant Chuck wouldn’t get killed, either.

She tried to focus on that. She might die, but Chuck would live. Wouldn’t be broken by a madman, That would have to be enough. It wasn’t, though - she didn’t want to die. If Chuck played along…. No. That was what Shaw wanted. And he’d kill them both anyway.

Turning her head, she could see Shaw’s expression twist into a sneer. “You will murder me? Hah!”

Of course, Chuck would murder Shaw, she realised. Her death would push Chuck over the line. Shaw would deeply but briefly regret what he was doing. But so would Chuck - and probably for a much longer time.

Once more, she tried to get out of her bounds, even though she knew it wouldn’t work.

“Really? I’ll show you. You can watch! Right now!”

No. She struggled harder, the plastic bands cutting into her skin. Shaw was climbing over the seats now - they had stopped for his call some time ago. If only she were able to move; unbalanced as he was, there was an opening…

She faintly heard Chuck yelling at Shaw through the phone. Threatening him some more. But the man wasn’t listening any more. He was glaring at her, his teeth bared. “You’ll hear her scream, Chuck!”

Then something crashed into the car and sent it spinning. Sarah felt the zip ties cut into her wrists and ankles even more as they stopped her from being thrown across the vehicle. 

Shaw had nothing to stop him. She saw how he hit the side of the car, his phone flying out of his hand, before he fell down next to her, his flailing leg hitting her head with a glancing blow.

She bit him.

A screech of metal drowned out his scream - the backdoor had been ripped open. Shaw was still moving, cursing. Probably going for a weapon, she realised.

Then he wasn’t moving any more. And she heard Caridad. “Stay down, fucker!” A moment later, she felt the ties that held her in place snap. “Are you OK, Sarah? Sarah?”

Sarah almost cried with relief. “I’m OK,” she replied. “Just hurting.”

“Alright.” The Slayer quickly ripped the remaining zip ties away. “Ugh. Those cuts need to be treated, or they’ll scar.”

That was the least of Sarah’s worries right now. “Secure Shaw!” The traitor couldn’t be allowed to escape.

“Right.”

As Sarah slowly sat up, hissing at the pain in her hands and feet, both from the cuts and the restored blood circulation, she watched the Slayer frisk Shaw, then tie him up. 

Sarah was safe. Saved in the last second.

“I’ve got her, Chuck. Shaw’s down.”

She gasped. The phone - Chuck was still listening. “Chuck!” Where was the damn phone? 

“Under the front seat,” Caridad said, “I can hear Chuck yell.”

Oh. Sarah got down on the floor. Yes, there it was. She reached under the seat and grabbed it. “Chuck?”

“Sarah? Sarah? Are you alright?”

“Yes.” She was. Hurt, but alive.

“Thank God!” He was sobbing, she realised. “He threatened to… to...”

“I heard,” she told him. “Caridad got him. Captured,” she clarified.

“Oh.” She heard him breathe deeply. “I’m sorry. He wanted me to kill cops, and if he didn’t, he would… I’m sorry…”

“It was the right thing,” she told him.

“Come on, Sarah, we need to scram before the cops arrive,” Caridad yelled. “Chuck’s Dad’s diverting them, but that won’t work forever!”

Sarah climbed out of the SUV. It had been smashed into the side of another car, she noticed. And while they weren’t in the middle of Hollywood, they weren’t in a particularly desert alley, either. If she had screamed, someone might have heard her.

But, she thought as she stumbled towards Caridad’s banged-up car, in this area, the odds that anyone would have cared to help would have been low.

Caridad helped her into the car. “I stashed Shaw in the trunk. Serves him right.” She pointed at the backseat. “His stuff is there.”

Sarah glanced at it. Two pistols, two knives, two phones. Wallet. Keys. A radio and assorted other gadgets. And his ripped clothes.

“He might have hidden something in the fabric,” Caridad explained.

“Ah.” Sarah glanced at the SUV. Her blood would be on the floor. “We need to torch it.”

“Alright.”

And then they’d have to save Chuck from being killed by the LAPD. Without killing the LAPD.

*****

She was alive! Sarah was alive! Alive! And they caught Shaw! Chuck blinked, trying to clear his eyes from the sudden tears. Sarah was alive! Everything was fine! They could…

He was thrown to the side, the seat belt digging into his chest, as the car lurched and took a corner with squealing tyres. “Dammit, Bartowski! Don’t space out!”

Right. They were still being chased by what looked like half the LAPD. Save yourself now, celebrate Saah’s rescue later. “Right,” he said. He needed a plan. And quickly - the cops were herding them, boxing them in. Dad could only do so much with hacking and misdirection. But what could they do… oh. “We need to swap cars,” he said.

“No shit,” Casey snapped. “But that’s kind of hard with so many tails.”

“Right,” Chuck repeated himself. They needed a car. And a distraction. Oh. “Alright. I’ve got it. Almost. I just need a map.” He opened the tracking program on his laptop. “Alright,” he muttered again, trying to ignore how he almost lost the laptop when Casey had to take a small detour over the next sidewalk to avoid crashing into some slow-driving limousine - probably a lost tourist in a rental.

“What are you planning?” Morgan said. “Can I help?”

“Yes. Call Dad and tell him to send me the locations of the cars chasing us. If he can.” Chuck really needed an uncompromised communication network. Even with Shaw down, they couldn’t trust their radios, though. He picked up his phone, using one hand to keep the laptop in place. “Sarah?”

“Chuck.”

“We need to swap cars,” he told her. “Where exactly are you right now? We’ll take your car, and Caridad will drive ours as a distraction until she can ditch it.” A slayer could easily evade the cops on foot. Or jump into the sea and swim away underwater.

“Hell yeah!” Caridad said. “Good plan!”

*****

The cops were shooting at them. It had taken them longer to start shooting than Chuck had expected, given the LAPD’s reputation, but they were now trying to make up for the time lost, or so it seemed - as soon as any patrol car had a clear shot, they took it. Repeatedly.

Chuck ducked as another bullet hit the car’s backside with a by now familiar sound, and Morgan gasped.

“It’s an armoured car, dolt,” Casey snarled. “Don’t freak out.”

Chuck knew that, but he couldn’t help it. Golden bullets were a thing. Just because something was very improbable didn’t mean it was impossible. And it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do, other than keeping track of cars. Theirs and the cops’.

Speaking off… “Uh, take the next left; right’s going to be blocked.”

“That’ll take us off course,” Casey replied.

“Can’t be helped,” Chuck said, grabbing his laptop with both hands as the car turned even tighter and barrelled down a side alley, trash flying left and right.

“We can’t make it to the garage with the damn chopper hounding us,” Casey spat.

“We can’t shoot it down,” Chuck retorted - not for the first time.

“We could use a crossbow to shoot a grappling line into the rotor,” Morgan proposed.

“I meant that we _shouldn’t_ kill cops,” Chuck said.

“They’re trying to kill us,” his friend replied.

“Because they think we’re terrorists. They were tricked,” Chuck explained.

“Tricked or not won’t change that they’re trying to kill us,” Casey snapped. “Bloody Shaw framed us good. We need to get rid of the chopper, or we’re dead - we won’t reach the garage in time.”

Chuck pressed his lips together so he didn’t blurt out his first response. As much as he hated to admit it, the NSA agent was correct - they were getting boxed in and hadn’t been able to get closer to Sarah and Caridad in the last few minutes - quite the contrary, actually. Unless a miracle happened, they wouldn’t last much longer. Perhaps they could meet with Sarah’s car somewhere else… but they needed cover for the swap, and they couldn’t get away on foot.

Damn. This was hopeless. They might as well give up… Chuck blinked. Of course! “Sarah, listen up - you too, Dad!” he added, yelling so his father would hear him. “I’ve got it!”

*****

“This is a stupid plan,” Casey growled. “A really stupid plan. We’re talking about the LAPD here.”

“It’ll work,” Chuck said. It had to.

“They’re still shooting at us,” Morgan stated the obvious. “Shouldn’t Sarah have reached them now?”

“Any minute,” Chuck said.

“We don’t have a minute!” Casey snarled. “Both roads ahead are blocked, and the ones behind us are filled with cars.”

Chuck glanced back. It did look a lot like The Blues Brothers’ climax. Just with everyone shooting at them. “It’ll work,” he repeated himself. It had to.

His phone rang. Yes!

He grabbed it. “Yes?”

“Chuck? It’s me, Sarah!”

“Sarah!” He didn’t have to fake his relief.

“I managed to escape! You don’t have to run from the police any more! I’m safe!”

“What?”

“Tell him to stop the car and surrender, Miss,” Chuck heard someone say in the background.

“Stop the car and surrender to the police, Chuck.”

“But they’re shooting at us!” He didn’t have to fake his anxiety either, here. Not completely.

“We’re telling them to stop shooting, But they have to stop the car,” the man told Sarah.

“Stop the car, Chuck.”

“Alright, stopping the car,” he said, glancing at Casey.

With a growl, the man brought the car to a halt - about twenty yards from the roadblock. “You better hope this works, or we’ll be dead.”

“It’s working, isn’t it?” Chuck retorted. The cops had stopped shooting, finally.

“We won’t know if it worked until the general gets the news.”

Chuck winced. He hadn’t quite considered that. But the die had been cast.

He checked if the laptop had been wiped, took a deep breath, and climbed out of the car, hands above his head. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! We surrender! We were forced to do this by the real terrorist! Don’t shoot! We didn’t do anything!”

Then he had to stand there, on his good leg, while a small army of cops approached them with their guns out.

Just like in ‘The Blues Brothers’.

*****

**California, Burbank, The Castle, March 7th, 2008**

“It took quite some effort on our part, but the official LAPD investigation will note that a yet unknown assailant tried to force you to commit a terrorist attack by kidnapping your girlfriend. You’ve been cleared.” General Beckman didn’t sound as if she was happy, and Chuck was sure that the reason for her bad mood wasn’t the fact that The Castle still sported a lot of damage.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said. They already were aware of most of it - they had been released from custody after a day in jail, after all, and the LAPD wouldn’t have one that if they had still been under suspicion - but it was nice to have official confirmation. It was too bad that they had needed the help, but even with Dad clearing up the electronic data trails, especially the phone calls, they would still be behind bars without the CIA applying pressure.

“Don’t thank me, Mr Bartowski,” the general bit out. “You’ve forced my hand with your stunt.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” he replied with a wince. He wasn’t sorry, though. Not really. This had been the best way to protect his family. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that the CIA might have been happier if they had still been wanted terrorists in need of protection from the law. Although that was probably just his pop culture influence talking. “But it was the best we could do without murdering innocent police officers.”

She frowned some more, but - to her credit - she didn’t contest that murdering cops would have been the worse outcome. Otherwise, things would have become awkward.

“It was an unconventional but working solution to the crisis caused by Agent Shaw, ma’am,” Sarah added. 

It was obvious that the general liked the reminder that the agent she had sent had turned out to be a traitor even less, but Beckman nodded anyway. “Shaw’s been transferred and his interrogation, as well as the investigation of the captured Fulcrum agents, has already started. The rest of his team has been called back for a thorough investigation as well.”

“Uh.” Chuck cleared his throat. “He was rather delusional, ma’am. And very irrational. I don’t think his intel can be trusted.”

“This will be taken into account when analysing the results,” the general replied with a quite tight smile.

Chuck nodded. That probably meant that they would believe Shaw’s theory about bionic assassins. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, but it was better than the CIA knowing the truth. Probably.

“We’ve also adjusted Agent Casey’s cover story to include service in the Marine Corps. It was needed to explain how a handful of supposed mall employees managed to evade a substantial part of the LAPD for so long.”

Casey nodded. The man seemed to be pleased about that, Chuck noticed. Oh. That meant he could scare their coworkers even better without breaking cover…

“Agent Bane, on the other hand, managed to preserve her and Agent Walker’s cover without necessitating additional steps,” the general went on. “Good thinking on your feet there.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” the spy replied with a pleased smile as if she hadn’t been informed by Dad about the plan while she had been in custody. Although, Chuck thought, that wouldn’t have been possible if Bane hadn’t managed to conceal a communicator from the cops, so perhaps she did deserve some of that recognition. 

Not that it mattered much, anyway.

“That doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been compromised,” Beckman said, interrupting Chuck’s thoughts. “Fulcrum is aware that Mr Bartowski isn’t a mere IT support employee.”

“Uh, assistant manager, ma’am,” Chuck corrected her, then flinched at her expression. “Just to be precise, ma’am…”

Sarah gently squeezed his shoulder. He smiled at her, grateful for her support. 

“The Castle has been compromised as well.” The general made a point of glancing around the room - as much as it was possible for her, not actually being present, of course. “And damaged,” she added with a frown.

Chuck was about to say that that was entirely the fault of Fulcrum, but Sarah squeezed his shoulder a little harder just as he opened his mouth.

“Normally, that would mean a relocation for the entire team,” Beckman continued. “However, given the losses Fulcrum took - preliminary analysis came to the conclusion that a majority of their available agents have been killed or captured - and the efforts made to preserve your cover identities, it has been decided to keep your current mission going. Also, maintain your cover - we cannot rule out the possibility that some elements of the LAPD might keep an eye on you despite you being officially cleared.”

What? Chuck blinked. He hadn’t expected that. They had been exposed, their cover identities revealed to Fulcrum, their base sabotaged, and they wanted to just keep going? Why would they…? Oh. Their current mission.

Chuck would continue to be bait. Great.

“Dismissed, Agents, Mr Barowski.”

Chuck sighed as soon as the screen - which had miraculously survived the fighting apart from some scratches - turned black.

“That’s a surprise,” Bane commented. “I would have expected to be relocated. Although we did hurt Fulcrum significantly. They’ve lost a base and two strike teams coming after us, at least.”

Casey snorted. “They believe Shaw’s theory about cybernetically augmented spies. That’s why they want to keep us here - they hope that Fulcrum will lose more assets and that our ‘mysterious allies’ will be exposed as well.”

Chuck looked at Sarah, who had taken the seat next to him. She nodded. “I agree.”

And odds were, the CIA wouldn’t stop looking for a black research project that didn’t exist. Not any more.

Great.

*****

**California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, March 7th, 2008**

Chuck closed his eyes and sighed as he sat down on the couch in their living room. 

“Is your leg giving you trouble?” Sarah asked from the kitchen.

“No more than usual,” he replied. Having a broken leg was really annoying. And tiring. But all things considered, it was a minor problem. Unless he was getting shot at. Which was the real problem. He sighed again.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah handed him a soda.

“What isn’t wrong?” He snorted. “Thanks.” After a moment, he went on: “Fulcrum knows all about us - we’re still in danger. And the CIA is using us as stalking horses to find out more about a secret research project that only exists in Fulcrum and Shaw’s minds.” And it was his fault. If he had managed to think of a better plan...

“But we’re all alive. Our cover’s intact as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Shaw’s been dealt with. And Fulcrum lost a lot of people - thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me?” He shook his head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You defeated two strike teams and defended the base.”

“I only helped to stall them until the others arrived,” he retorted.

“And you took out a third of them by yourself,” she told him.

By burning them to death. He winced at the reminder, and she flinched.

“Sorry.”

He shook his head. “It’s OK.” It wasn’t, but that wasn’t important right now.

“But you also found a way out of Shaw’s trap without killing innocents. And you saved me without giving in to his demands.”

“That was just luck. If Caridad had been a little slower…” He shook his head again. “And I was too slow to warn you.”

“Shaw got lucky, too.” She put a hand on his cheek as she stared into his eyes. “It came down to him against you. His plans against yours. And he had the time to prepare - he had the initiative and the surprise on his side, and Fulcrum’s help. And you had a broken leg. But you beat him anyway. You beat a top spy, Chuck. At spying.”

Put it like that… He started to smile. “I guess I did.” He had been lucky, he couldn’t deny that. But he had beaten Shaw. And without using the Intersect.

“I guess I’m a spy,” he said. He was a spy. A real spy. Not a fluke or a walking computer. A spy. He was pulling his weight.

And that felt damn good.

She nodded. “You are. And a damn good one.”

Then she leaned forward and kissed him.

That felt even better, though. Sarah was more important than being a spy.

Much more important than anything else, he thought as he wrapped his arms around her.

*****

_...to be continued in ‘The Burbank Team’_


End file.
